Global Courant
North Korea launched two short-range missiles off the east coast on Thursday, its first missile test in two months, as the US and South Korean militaries conducted a joint live-fire exercise near the inter-Korean border.
The missiles were launched from the Sunan district of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, the South Korean military said. The military said it was analyzing data from the test to learn more about the missiles.
Hirokazu Matsuno, a Japanese government spokesman, told reporters that at least two ballistic missiles had landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone between 7:30 pm and 8:00 pm. He said Japan took no action to shoot down the missiles.
Thursday’s test was the first by the North since it first tested a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile on April 13.
Hours before the launch, the South Korean and US military conducted a target practice in Pochon, north of Seoul, the South Korean capital. The exercise, which also involved artillery and fighter jets, was the latest in a series of similar exercises that the Allies have conducted in recent weeks to bolster their readiness against North Korea.
After watching the joint exercise, South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol said: “We don’t need fake peace that depends on the goodwill of the enemy, we need real peace that we can achieve when we build our own security with our own strength.”
Mr. Yoon, a conservative, has been an outspoken critic of his liberal predecessor Moon Jae-in’s policy of engaging North Korea in dialogue, using the words “fake peace” to describe the brief inter-Korean rapprochement under Mr. moon to describe.
In a statement ahead of the missile test, North Korea’s Defense Ministry condemned the recent combined US and South Korean exercises as “provocative and irresponsible actions” that created tensions.
“Our response to this is inevitable,” the ministry said. “Our armed forces will fully counter any kind of demonstrative movements and provocations of the enemies.”
North Korea has rapidly expanded its missile and nuclear weapons program since diplomacy between its leader, Kim Jong-un, and Donald J. Trump, then US President, ended in 2019 without a deal.
The April 13 test, which involved the North’s newest ICBM, the solid-fuel Hwasong-18, was considered a major technological milestone for North Korea because a solid-fuel ICBM is easier to conceal, transport, and takes less time to prepare for launch. That makes it more difficult to target on preemptive strikes than the Hwasong-14, -15 and -17 ICBM models, all of which use liquid propellant gases.
North Korea also launched a spacecraft in late May, which it said carried its first military reconnaissance satellite built to track the South Korean and US militaries.
That launch briefly prompted evacuation warnings in South Korea. But the North later admitted that the launch was a failure, with the missile crashing into the sea west of the Korean peninsula.
Hisako Ueno reported from Tokyo.
