Brian McDonald
Seoul, South Korea North Korea fired suspected short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast on Friday, South Korea’s military said, a day after South Korea and the United States launched powerful fighter jets in a joint exercise that North sees it as a major security threat.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the launches were made from the Wonsan region on the North’s east coast at around 3:10 p.m. He said South Korea’s military had reinforced its surveillance posture and was maintaining readiness.
In recent months, North Korea extended its series of weapons tests as part of its efforts to expand and modernize its arsenal, while diplomacy with the United States and South Korea remains dormant. Last week, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised the test firing of a new multiple rocket launch systemaccording to state media in the North.
North Korea says it has been forced to bolster its nuclear and missile programs to deal with US-led hostilities. North Korea cites the expansion of military training between the US and South Korea, which it calls an invasion rehearsal.
Many foreign experts say North Korea uses the military exercises of its rivals as a pretext for building a larger weapons arsenal, in the belief that this would increase their influence in future diplomacy with the U.S.
Ahn Young-joon/AP
On Thursday, two South Korean F-35As and two US F-22 Raptors were deployed for combined air exercises over central South Korea. North Korea is extremely sensitive to the use of sophisticated American aircraft.
On Friday, Kim’s sister and senior official Kim Yo Jong said North Korea’s recent weapons tests were part of the country’s five-year weapons development plan, launched in 2021. She said the weapons recently tests are designed to attack Seoul, the South Korean capital, and denied outside speculation that the tests were intended to display weapons that North Korea plans to export to Russia for use in its war with Ukraine.
“We do not hide the fact that such weapons will be used to prevent Seoul from concocting any idle thoughts,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which deals with North Korea, responded that it is fully ready to repel any military threats from North Korea in conjunction with its military alliance with the United States. The ministry’s deputy spokesperson Kim Inae also said that “illegal” arms deals between North Korea and Russia must be stopped immediately.
Agence France-Presse notes that Seoul said in March that Pyongyang had sent about 7,000 containers of weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine since approximately July 2023.
Experts say North Korea wants a raft of military aid from Russia in return, such as satellite technology and the modernization of its Soviet-era military equipment.
