Seoul: South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff has claimed that North Korea has fired an “unidentified ballistic missile” into East Sea.
Seoul’s military said that it is the latest in a record-breaking blitz of launches as Pyongyang warned of a “fiercer” military response to the US and its regional allies.
The test came shortly after Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui issued a statement saying Pyongyang will respond militarily if the U.S. keeps working with its allies on joint exercises, including those to deter North Korea.
“The keener the U.S. is on the ‘bolstered offer of extended deterrence’ to its allies and the more they intensify provocative and bluffing military activities on the Korean Peninsula and in the region, the fiercer the DPRK’s military counteraction will be,” she said in a statement issued by state media, referring to North Korea by its formal name.
Earlier this week, US President Joe Biden discussed North Korea’s spate of recent missile tests with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Bali, Indonesia on the sidelines of the G20 summit.
The US leader pushed China to use its influence to rein in North Korea after the wave of missile launches raised fears the reclusive regime would soon carry out its seventh nuclear test.
Biden also held talks with his South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Sunday to discuss ways to address the threat posed by the North’s “unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs”, the White House said.
On Thursday, North Korea’s minister of foreign affairs, Choe Son Hui, slammed these discussions, saying they were “bringing the situation on the Korean peninsula to an unpredictable phase.”
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