NORTH KOREA – TELAM Agency
North Korea launched several cruise missiles off its western coast on Thursday, the second such incident in a week following joint South Korean-US military drills in late August.
“While our supervision and vigilance are reinforced, our Army maintains a position of total readiness, in close coordination with the United States,” said the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, which warned of the new shots, according to the news agency local Yonhap.
This new event takes place after the North Korean authorities launched two ballistic missiles on Wednesday into the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, as the joint military maneuvers of Seoul and Washington progressed in the vicinity of the peninsula of Korea, reported the Europa Press news agency.
The launch of these two ballistic missiles was confirmed on Thursday by North Korean leaders, who reiterated that it was a response to these joint maneuvers that represent, in their opinion, “a serious threat”, since “they were carried out according to the scenario of a pre-emptive nuclear strike” against North Korea.
“The objective of the exercise is to send a clear message to the enemies, who responded to repeated warnings from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) with military threats such as the deployment of strategic assets,” said a statement from the Joint Chiefs of Staff reproduced by the KCNA news agency.
North Korea has been showing its rejection of joint military maneuvers for decades, presenting them as the prelude to a possible invasion and nuclear war.
In this sense, although there are UN Security Council resolutions that prohibit North Korea from carrying out tests with ballistic missiles, there are no similar vetoes that refer to cruise missiles.
Source: Ambito
