(Seoul) New ballistic missile test, passages of fighter planes, artillery fire at sea: Pyongyang engaged Thursday and Friday in demonstrations of military force near the border with South Korea, claiming to respond to “provocations” from Seoul.
Updated yesterday at 10:13 p.m.
North Korea has increased in recent weeks the tests of weapons described as simulations of “tactical nuclear” strikes against targets in South Korea. Seoul and Washington also expect that Pyongyang, which considers itself threatened by American, South Korean and Japanese military maneuvers in the region, will soon resume its nuclear tests.
According to the official North Korean agency KCNA, a ballistic missile was fired towards the sea on the night of Thursday to Friday, in response to an artillery exercise by South Korea.
A North Korean army spokesman quoted in a statement accused the South Korean army of carrying out “artillery fire for about ten hours” near the border on Thursday. The North Korean army “took strong military countermeasures” in response to this “provocative action”, the statement carried by KCNA added.
Pyongyang issued “a stern warning to the South Korean military who are stoking military tension in the frontline area through their reckless actions,” the statement continued.
According to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, the missile was launched from Sunan area in Pyongyang in the early hours of Friday.
And between 11:30 p.m. Thursday and 12:20 a.m. Friday local time, shortly before the last missile was fired, ten North Korean fighter jets flew over an area 25 km from the border with South Korea on Thursday, which sent in turn devices in response, according to the South Korean staff quoted by Yonhap.
The North Korean planes crossed a “reconnaissance line”, triggering an automatic response from the South, according to the same source. Seoul has launched fighter jets, including F-35As.
Artillery fire
This is the second major deployment of combat aircraft in a week.
North Korea then carried out 170 artillery fire into its waters on its east and west coasts, in violation of a “buffer zone” established during a 2018 agreement with the South to prevent incidents at sea, according to the South Korean General Staff.
“The North seems to have taken the South’s recent artillery test very seriously,” Hong Min of the Korea Institute for National Unification told AFP. According to this analyst, the shootings in the maritime “buffer zone” look like “an attempt to test Seoul’s response”.
On Wednesday, two long-range strategic cruise missiles were fired by North Korea. Leader Kim Jong-un, who witnessed the firing, expressed “great satisfaction” over the readiness of the country’s nuclear combat forces, according to KCNA.
The United States condemned the latest ballistic missile launch. “This launch, along with others over the past month, violates multiple UN Security Council resolutions” and “threatens the peace and stability of the region,” a State Department spokesperson said. .
He lamented that North Korea “refuses to respond” to US offers of dialogue.
Earlier this week, Kim Jong-un rejected the idea of a resumption of negotiations on its banned weapons programs, saying that North Korea “did not feel the need”.
South Korea’s National Security Council for its part condemned the “hostile actions” overnight, warning that “such provocations will have consequences”.
Seoul also imposed its first unilateral sanctions in five years on Friday, targeting North Korean individuals and institutions.
Tensions have been rising on the Korean peninsula since the beginning of the year. In response to Pyongyang’s weapons tests, South Korea and the United States have stepped up joint military exercises. But North Korea sees these maneuvers as a rehearsal for an invasion of its territory, and has responded with new rounds of missile tests.
Last month, North Korea also declared that its status as a nuclear power was “irreversible”, definitively closing the door to any disarmament negotiations, and let it be known that it authorized itself to carry out preventive strikes in the event of a threat. .
Both Seoul and Washington have been warning for months against the risk of Pyongyang carrying out a nuclear test, which would be the seventh in its history and the first since 2017.