SEOUL, Nov 17 (Reuters) – North Korea fired a ballistic missile on Thursday as it warned of “fiercer military responses” to U.S. efforts to boost its security presence in the region with its allies, saying Washington is taking a “gamble it will regret”.
South Korea’s military said the ballistic missile was launched from the North’s east coast city of Wonsan at 10:48 a.m. (0248 GMT). It was the latest in a record number of such tests this year, and the North also fired hundreds of artillery shells into the sea more recently as South Korea and the United States staged exercises, some of which involved Japan.
The launch came less than two hours after North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, slammed a recent trilateral summit between the United States, South Korea and Japan, during which the leaders criticised Pyongyang’s weapons tests and pledged greater security cooperation.
At the talks, U.S. President Joe Biden reaffirmed a commitment to reinforce extended deterrence and defend the two Asian allies with a “full range of capabilities”, including nuclear weapons.
Choe said the three countries’ “war drills for aggression” failed to rein in the North but would rather bring a “more serious, realistic and inevitable threat” upon themselves.
“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 … the fiercer the DPRK’s military counteraction will be,” Choe said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
She referred to her country by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“The U.S. will be well aware that it is gambling, for which it will certainly regret,” Choe added.
A spokesman for South Korea’s defence ministry said the trilateral summit and their cooperation on extended deterrence are aimed at countering the North’s nuclear and missile threats.
The United States has been saying since May that North Korea is preparing to conduct its first nuclear test since 2017, but its actual timing remains unclear.
Washington, Seoul and Tokyo said in a joint statement after the summit that Pyongyang’s nuclear testing would incur a “strong and resolute response.”
Choe said the North’s military activities are “legitimate and just counteractions” to the U.S.-led drills.
South Korea’s Unification Minister Kwon Young-se, who handles intra-Korea affairs, said the North might postpone its nuclear test for some time, citing China’s domestic political schedule.
“North Korea has also achieved some political effects by codifying its nuclear law in August, so it might not have immediate needs for a nuclear test,” Kwon said in an interview with Yonhap news agency released on Thursday.
Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Additional reporting by Soo-hyang Choi; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Lincoln Feast and Gerry Doyle
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NUSA DUA, Indonesia, Nov 14 (Reuters) – Chinese leader Xi Jinping will arrive on the Indonesian island of Bali on Monday for a long-awaited meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden, ahead of a Group of 20 (G20) summit set to be fraught with tension over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The two leaders are expected to discuss Taiwan, Ukraine and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, issues that will also loom over the G20 that opens on Tuesday without Russian President Vladimir Putin in attendance.
Billionaire Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) and Twitter Inc, addressed a business forum that is part of the summit and said he had “too much work” on his plate.
Speaking by videolink, he appeared lit by candles, wearing a batik shirt sent by the organisers. He said he was speaking from a place that had just lost power.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will represent the Russian president at the G20 summit – the first since Russia invaded Ukraine in February – after the Kremlin said Putin was too busy to attend.
On the eve of Monday’s meeting with Xi, Biden told Asian leaders in Cambodia that U.S. communication lines with China would stay open to prevent conflict, with tough talks almost certain in the days ahead.
The United States would “compete vigorously” with China while “ensuring competition does not veer into conflict”, said Biden, stressing the importance of peace in the Taiwan Strait during an address to the East Asia Summit in Cambodia. He arrived in Bali on Sunday night.
Relations between the superpowers have sunk to their lowest in decades, marred by growing tensions in recent years over a host of issues ranging from Hong Kong and Taiwan to the South China Sea, trade practices and U.S. restrictions on Chinese technology.
But U.S. officials said there have been quiet efforts by both Beijing and Washington over the past two months to repair ties.
“These meetings do not take place in isolation, they are part of a very sustained process,” said one Biden administration official. “We have engaged in serious, sustained – dozens and dozens of hours – of quiet diplomacy behind the scenes.
“I think we are satisfied with the seriousness that both sides have brought to that process.”
Biden and Xi, who have held five phone or video calls since Biden became president in January 2021, last met in person during the Obama administration when Biden was vice president.
Monday’s face-to-face meeting will be at The Mulia, a luxury beachside hotel on Nusa Dua bay in Bali. It is unlikely to produce a joint statement, the White House has said, but it could help stabilise the bilateral relationship.
Both leaders will attend the opening of the G20 summit on Tuesday.
‘SOME DISCOMFORT’
One of the main topics at the G20 will be Russia’s war in Ukraine and Biden will be “unapologetic” in his defence of the European nation, U.S. officials said last week.
Xi and Putin have grown increasingly close in recent years, bound by their shared distrust of the West, and reaffirmed their partnership just days before Russia invaded Ukraine. But China has been careful not to provide any direct material support that could trigger Western sanctions against it.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang emphasised the “irresponsibility” of nuclear threats during the summit in Cambodia, suggesting China was uncomfortable with strategic partner Russia’s nuclear rhetoric, the Biden administration official said.
The West has accused Russia of making irresponsible statements on the possible use of nuclear weapons since its February invasion of Ukraine. Russia has in turn accused the West of “provocative” nuclear rhetoric.
“There have been areas where China and Russia have worked together to deepen and broaden their relationship economically,” said the U.S. official. “But on some of these big issues, I think there is undeniably some discomfort in Beijing about what we’ve seen in terms of reckless rhetoric and activity on the part of Russia.”
Russia’s Lavrov said on Sunday the West was “militarising” Southeast Asia in a bid to contain Russian and Chinese interests, setting the stage for more confrontation with Western leaders at the G20.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he will address the G20 gathering by videolink on Tuesday.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is expected to meet Lavrov at the summit, a Downing Street spokesperson said in a statement. He is also likely to hold a bilateral meeting with Biden.
The G20 bloc, which includes a broad array of countries ranging from Brazil to India and Germany, accounts for more than 80% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 60% of its population.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is due to join Indonesian President Joko Widodo to address the parallel B20 business forum taking place on Monday ahead of the G20 summit.
Reporting by Nandita Bose, Fransiska Nangoy, Leika Kihara and Simon Lewis in Nusa Dua; Writing by Kay Johnson and Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Ed Davies and Robert Birsel
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SEOUL, Nov 9 (Reuters) – North Korea fired at least one ballistic missile into the sea on Wednesday, as South Korea said it had identified debris from an earlier launch as part of a Soviet-era SA-5 surface-to-air missile.
Japan’s Coast Guard said the ballistic missile appeared to have fallen into the sea minutes after the launch was reported.
The missile flew to an altitude of up to 50 km, and covered a range of 250 km, Japan’s Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada told reporters.
He said the government lodged a strong protest with North Korea via diplomatic channels through Beijing, and that Tokyo had strongly condemned the launch.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) also said it had detected the launch of an unspecified ballistic missile from North Korea.
The launch came after South Korea concluded an analysis of what it had initially said was part of a North Korean short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) that landed near South Korean waters last week.
The analysis, however, showed the piece, about 3 metres (3.3 yards) long and 2 metres wide, was part of an SA-5 anti-aircraft missile, the defence ministry said, citing its appearance and features.
The ministry strongly condemned the missile launch at the time, calling it a breach of a 2018 inter-Korean military pact banning any activities stoking border tensions.
“This SA-5 missile launch was a clearly deliberate, intentional provocation,” it said in a statement. “The SA-5 also has characteristics of a surface-to-surface missile, and Russia has used similar missiles in Ukraine for surface-to-surface attacks.”
A South Korean Navy ship used an underwater probe to recover the missile, which came as the North test-fired multiple missiles last week, including a possible failed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), protesting against joint air drills by South Korea and the United States.
It was the first time a North Korean ballistic missile had landed near South Korean waters.
North Korea’s military said the launches were simulated strikes on South Korea and the United States, criticising their exercises as an “dangerous, aggressive war drill.”
South Korean and U.S. officials have also said that Pyongyang has made technical preparations to test a nuclear device, the first time it will have done so since 2017.
The SA-5 is an air defence missile originally designed by the Soviet Union, where it was designated the S-200, to shoot down strategic bombers and other high-altitude targets.
The missile was exported around the world, and is still in service in at least a dozen countries, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Missile Defense Project.
North Korea took delivery of SA-5 systems in the mid-1980s, according to “The Armed Forces of North Korea: On the Path of Songun”, a 2020 survey by Dutch researchers.
“Two sites equipped with these very long-ranged systems cover the entirety of North Korean airspace as well as a sizeable chunk of that of the South,” the researchers wrote.
“However, having been designed to counter strategic aircraft, their use against modern fast jets such as the F-15 and F-16 is questionable to say the least.”
Reporting by Hyonhee Shinn and Josh Smith; Additional reporting by Kantaro Komiya and Daniel Leussink in Tokyo; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Gerry Doyle
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SEOUL, Nov 7 (Reuters) – North Korea’s military said on Monday that recent South Korea-U.S. military exercises were an “open provocation and dangerous war drill”, as the South said it had recovered parts of a North Korean missile that landed off its coast.
Last week, North Korea test-fired multiple missiles, including a possible failed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), and hundreds of artillery shells into the sea, as South Korea and the United States carried out six-day air drills that ended on Saturday.
The North’s military said the “Vigilant Storm” exercises were an “open provocation aimed at intentionally escalating the tension” and “a dangerous war drill of very high aggressive nature”.
The North’s army said it had conducted activities simulating attacks on air bases and aircraft, as well as a major South Korean city, to “smash the enemies’ persistent war hysteria”
The flurry of missile launches included the most ever in a single day, and come amid a record year of missile testing by the nuclear-armed North Korea.
South Korean and U.S. officials have also said that Pyongyang has made technical preparations to test a nuclear device, the first time it will have done so since 2017.
An official at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Monday that a South Korean ship had recovered debris believed to be part of a North Korean short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) that landed off the South’s coast last week. It was the first time a North Korean ballistic missile had landed near South Korean waters.
The South Korean Navy rescue vessel used an underwater probe to recover the parts, which are being analysed, the official said.
DISPUTED CLAIMS
The North Korean military said it fired two “strategic” cruise missiles on Nov. 2 toward the waters off South Korea’s Ulsan, the southeastern coastal city housing a nuclear power plant and large factory parks.
South Korean officials called that claim “untrue” and said they had tracked no missiles near there.
Analysts said some of the photos released by North Korean state media seemed to be recycled from launches earlier in the year.
The operations also included a launch of two “tactical ballistic missiles loaded with dispersion warheads,” a test of a “special functional warhead paralysing the operation command system of the enemy,” and an “all-out combat sortie” involving 500 fighter jets, according to a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
Five hundred fighters would represents almost every dedicated combat aircraft in the North’s inventory, which seems unlikely given many are 40-80 year old airframes and not all are serviceable or kept in the active fleet, said Joseph Dempsey, a defence researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
“(The) 500 figure seems exaggerated or at least misleading,” he said in a post on Twitter.
The General Staff of the North’s Korean People’s Army (KPA) accused Seoul and Washington of eliciting a “more unstable confrontation,” and vowed to counter their drills with “sustained, resolute and overwhelming practical military measures.”
“The more persistently the enemies’ provocative military moves continue, the more thoroughly and mercilessly the KPA will counter them,” it said in the statement.
NEW MISSILE?
The photos released by state media appeared to show a previously unreported new type or variant of ICBM, analysts said.
“It’s not explicit in their statement, but the design doesn’t correspond to one we’ve seen before,” said Ankit Panda, a missile expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
He said the launch shown may have been a developmental platform for evaluating missile subsystems, including possibly a vehicle for multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), which allow a single missile to drop nuclear warheads on different targets.
“This is definitely an ICBM-size missile,” Panda said.
George William Herbert, an adjunct professor at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies and a missile consultant said the images showed what appeared to be a new nosecone on North Korea’s Hwasong-15 ICBM, which was first tested in 2017.
The nosecone has a different shape, and appears larger than necessary for the 200- to 300-kiloton nuclear device shown in state media and apparently tested in 2017, he said.
Herbert said the shape is more suited for a single large warhead than multiple smaller warheads such as a MIRV.
Kim has called for the development of both larger nuclear warheads, as well as smaller ones, which could be used in MIRVs or for tactical weapons.
Reporting by Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Diane Craft and Gerry Doyle
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SEOUL, Nov 4 (Reuters) – South Korea said it scrambled warplanes in response to 180 North Korean military flights near the countries’ shared border on Friday, hours after the North fired about 80 artillery rounds in protest of Seoul’s joint military drills with the United States.
North Korean aircraft were detected in multiple areas north of the “tactical action line” north of the Military Demarcation Line between the two Koreas, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The flights occurred between 11 a.m. (0200 GMT) and 3 p.m. The virtual line is drawn north of the military border and is used as a basis for South Korean air defence operations, a South Korean official said.
He declined to give the virtual line’s distance from the MDL, but local news reports said it was 20 to 50 kilometres (12 to 31 miles).
South Korea scrambled 80 aircraft, including F-35A stealth fighters, in response, while about 240 jets participating in the Vigilant Storm air exercises with the United States continued their drills, the military said.
A flight of 10 North Korean warplanes made similar manoeuvres last month, prompting South Korea to scramble jets.
The North’s manoeuvres follow the firing of more than 80 rounds of artillery overnight and the launch of multiple missiles into the sea on Thursday, including a possible failed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
North Korea also fired at least 23 missiles on Wednesday – a record for a single day.
The series of launches prompted the United States and South Korea to extend the Vigilant Storm drills, which have angered Pyongyang.
Meeting in Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup pledged to seek new measures to demonstrate the alliance’s “determination and capabilities” following repeated North Korean provocations, according to a joint statement between the two countries.
A senior U.S. administration official said on Thursday that although the United States had said since May that North Korea was preparing to resume nuclear testing for the first time since 2017, it was not clear when it might conduct such a test.
The United States believes China and Russia have leverage to persuade North Korea not to resume nuclear bomb testing, the official told Reuters.
Diplomats said Washington had asked the U.N. Security Council to convene publicly on North Korea on Friday, a request backed by other council members Britain, France, Albania, Ireland and Norway.
In recent years the 15-member council has been split on how to deal with North Korea and in May, China and Russia vetoed a U.S.-led push to impose more U.N. sanctions in response to North Korean missile launches.
In Seoul, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier condemned North Korea for threatening international security with repeated missile launches and urged Pyongyang to return to dialogue.
“I think the Pyongyang regime is solely responsible for the current situation,” Steinmeier said via an interpreter during a news conference after talks with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol.
Pyongyang, meanwhile, has condemned allied military drills.
On Thursday, Pak Jong Chon, secretary of the Central Committee of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, said Washington and Seoul had made a very dangerous decision by extending the exercises, and were “shoving” the situation out of control.
“The United States and South Korea will find that they have made a terrible mistake that cannot be reversed,” said Pak.
Reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Jack Kim and Gerry Doyle
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SEOUL, Nov 4 (Reuters) – South Korea’s military said it scrambled fighter jets after detecting about 180 North Korean warplanes flying north of the military border over four hours on Friday.
The North Korean aircraft flew north of the so-called tactical measure line, drawn to up 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), South Korea’s military said in a statement.
South Korea scrambled 80 aircraft, including, F-35A stealth fighters, in response. About 240 aircraft participating in the Vigilant Storm air exercises with the United States continued the drills, the military said.
A flight of 10 North Korean warplanes made similar maneuvers last month, prompting South Korea to scramble jets.
The maneuvers came after North Korea fired more than 80 rounds of artillery into the sea overnight, and the launch of multiple missiles into the sea on Thursday, including a possible failed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
The launches prompted the United States and South Korea to extend air drills that have angered Pyongyang.
Reporting by Soo-hyang Choi; Editing by Jacqueline Wong
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TOKYO/SEOUL, Nov 3 (Reuters) – North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles on Thursday, including one that triggered an alert for residents in parts of central and northern Japan to seek shelter, the latest in a record year of missile testing by the nuclear-armed North.
Despite an initial government warning that a missile had overflown Japan, Tokyo later said that was incorrect.
The launches came a day after North Korea fired at least 23 missiles, the most in a single day, including one that landed off South Korea’s coast for the first time.
Residents of Miyagi, Yamagata and Niigata prefectures in northern Japan were warned on Thursday to seek shelter indoors, according to the J-Alert Emergency Broadcasting System.
Japanese Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada said the government had lost track of the first missile over the Sea of Japan, prompting it to correct its earlier announcement that it had flown over Japan.
“We detected a launch that showed the potential to fly over Japan and therefore triggered the J Alert, but after checking the flight we confirmed that it had not passed over Japan,” Hamada told reporters.
The first missile flew to an altitude of about 2,000 kilometres and a range of 750 kilometres, he said. Such a flight pattern is called a “lofted trajectory”, in which a missile is fired high into space to avoid flying over neighbouring countries.
In brief comments to reporters a few minutes later, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said, “North Korea’s repeated missile launches are an outrage and absolutely cannot be forgiven.”
About half an hour after the launch was first reported, Japan’s Coast Guard said the missile had fallen.
The Yonhap news agency reported the first missile went through stage separation, suggesting it may be a long-range weapon such as an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the long-range missile was launched from near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.
About an hour after the first launch, South Korea’s military and the Japanese coast guard reported a second and third launch from North Korea. South Korea said both of those were short-range missiles fired from Kaechon, north of Pyongyang.
After North Korea’s launches on Wednesday, including one missile that landed less than 60 km (40 miles) off South Korea’s coast, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol described the flights as “territorial encroachment” and Washington denounced them as “reckless”.
South Korea issued rare air raid warnings and launched its own missiles in response after Wednesday’s barrage.
The launches came after Pyongyang demanded the United States and South Korea stop large-scale military exercises, saying such “military rashness and provocation can be no longer tolerated”.
The allies have been conducting one of the largest air exercises ever, with hundreds of South Korean and U.S. warplanes, including F-35 fighters, staging around-the-clock simulated missions.
On Oct. 4, North Korea launched a ballistic missile over Japan for the first time in five years, prompted a warning for residents there to take cover. It was the farthest North Korea had ever fired a missile.
Reporting by Kantoro Komiya in Tokyo and Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith in Seoul
Editing by Chris Reese, Lincoln Feast and Gerry Doyle
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Multiple missiles launched into sea, S.Korea’s military says
One landed south of disputed inter-Korean maritime border
S.Korea president vows N.Korea will ‘pay the price’
N.Korea calls allied military drills ‘provocative’
SEOUL, Nov 2 (Reuters) – North Korea fired at least 17 missiles into the sea on Wednesday, including one that landed less than 60 km (40 miles) off South Korea’s coast, which the South’s President Yoon Suk-yeol described as “territorial encroachment”.
It was the first time a ballistic missile had landed near the South’s waters since the peninsula was divided in 1945, and the most missiles fired by the North in a single day. South Korea issued rare air raid warnings and launched its own missiles in response.
The missile landed outside South Korea’s territorial waters, but south of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), a disputed inter-Korean maritime border.
South Korean warplanes fired three air-to-ground missiles into the sea north across the NLL in response, the South’s military said. An official said the weapons used included an AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER, which is a U.S.-made “stand-off” precision attack weapon that can fly for up to 270 km (170 miles) with a 360 kg (800-pound) warhead.
The South’s launches came after Yoon’s office vowed a “swift and firm response”.
“North Korea’s provocation today was an effective act of territorial encroachment by a missile intruding the NLL for the first time since (the two Koreas’) division,” a senior official at Yoon’s office told reporters.
When asked whether the missile was flying towards the South’s territory and should have been intercepted, the official said: “Strictly speaking, it did not land in our territory but in the Exclusive Economic Zone under our jurisdiction, therefore it was not subject to interception.”
That missile was one of three short-range ballistic missiles fired from the North Korean coastal area of Wonsan into the sea, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. The JCS later said as many as 14 other missiles of various types had been fired from North Korea’s east and west coasts.
The JCS said at least one of the missiles landed 26 km south of the NLL, 57 km from the South Korean city of Sokcho, on the east coast, and 167 km from the island of Ulleung, where air raid warnings were sounded.
“We heard the siren at around 8:55 am and all of us in the building went down to the evacuation place in the basement,” an Ulleung county official told Reuters. “We stayed there until we came upstairs at around 9:15 after hearing that the projectile fell into the high seas.”
A resident on the southern part of the island said they received no warnings.
The North also fired more than 100 rounds of artillery from its east coast into a military buffer zone established in a military agreement with the South, South Korea’s military said.
The firing violates the 2018 agreement, the JCS said.
North and South Korea are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
Nuclear-armed North Korea has tested a record number of missiles this year, and officials in Seoul and Washington say the North has completed technical preparations to conduct a nuclear weapon test for the first time since 2017.
North Korea continues to test ballistic missiles despite multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions that ban all ballistic and nuclear tests by the country
[1/5] People watch a TV broadcasting a news report on North Korea firing a ballistic missile off its east coast, in Seoul, South Korea, November 2, 2022. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
The launches came just hours after Pyongyang demanded that the United States and South Korea stop large-scale military exercises, saying such “military rashness and provocation can be no longer tolerated”.
Despite Yoon’s declaring a national week of mourning after more than 150 people were killed in a weekend crowd surge in Seoul, the United States and South Korea began one of their largest combined military air drills on Monday. Dubbed Vigilant Storm, the exercises involve hundreds of warplanes from both sides staging mock attacks 24 hours a day. read more
MAJOR MILITARY DRILLS
North Korea, which for years has pursued missile and nuclear programmes in defiance of U.N. sanctions, had said that a recent flurry of launches were in response to allied drills.
Pak Jong Chon, secretary of the Central Committee of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, said in a statement on Wednesday that the number of warplanes involved in Vigilant Storm proved the exercise was “aggressive and provocative” and specifically targeted North Korea. He said even its name imitated the U.S.-led Operation Desert Storm against Iraq in the 1990s.
“The hostile forces’ inordinate moves for military confrontation have created a grave situation on the Korean peninsula,” Pak said in a statement carried by state news agency KCNA.
On Tuesday in Washington, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that the drills were “purely defensive in nature” and that the United States had made clear to North Korea that it harboured no hostile intent.
Price added that the United States and its allies had also made clear that there would be “profound costs and profound consequences” if North Korea resumed nuclear testing, which would be a “dangerous, destabilising step”. He did not elaborate.
In a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin called the North Korean missile launch “unprecedented” and a “grave act of military provocation”. The two officials condemned the launch and agreed to cooperate against North Korean threats, Park’s office said in a statement.
LAUNCHING MISSILES IN ‘NEW WAYS’
South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said that because of the launches, some air routes over the sea between North Korea and Japan would be closed until Thursday.
“Our military can never tolerate this kind of North Korea’s provocative act, and will strictly and firmly respond under close South Korea-U.S. cooperation,” JCS said in a news release.
Japanese Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada said the government believed at least two ballistic missiles had been launched from North Korea, one flying east and another southeast.
The first flew 150 km to a maximum altitude of approximately 150 km, while the second covered a range of 200 km to a maximum altitude of 100 km, he told reporters in Tokyo on Wednesday morning.
Reuters Graphics
North Korea’s actions threaten the peace and stability of Japan, the wider region, as well as the broader international community, Hamada said.
Reporting by Soo-hyang Choi, Choonsik Yoo and Josh Smith; Additional reportng by David Brunnstrom in Washington and Sakura Murakami in Tokyo; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman, Gerry Doyle, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Nick Macfie
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
TOKYO, Oct 26 (Reuters) – The United States, Japan and South Korea warned on Wednesday that an “unparalleled” scale of response would be warranted if North Korea conducts a seventh nuclear bomb test.
Washington and its allies believe North Korea could be about to resume nuclear bomb testing for the first time since 2017.
“We agreed that an unparalleled scale of response would be necessary if North Korea pushes ahead with a seventh nuclear test,” South Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong told a news conference in Tokyo.
Cho was speaking alongside his Japanese and U.S. counterparts, Vice Foreign Minister Takeo Mori and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman.
The United States and its allies have offered few details on what new measures they might take, and observers say they have few good options for preventing a new test.
For the first time since North Korea began testing nuclear weapons in 2006, China and Russia this year vetoed a U.S.-led push for additional United Nations Security Council sanctions, and stepped-up allied military drills have only been met by more North Korean tests and exercises.
“We urge (North Korea) to refrain from further provocations,” Sherman said, calling them “reckless and deeply destabilising for the region.
“Anything that happens here, such as a North Korean nuclear test … has implications for the security of the entire world,” she said, sending a thinly veiled message to Pyongyang’s supporters, China and Russia, in the UN Security Council.
“We hope indeed that everyone on the Security Council would understand that any use of a nuclear weapon will change the world in incredible ways.”
[1/6] Japanese Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Takeo Mori, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and South Korea’s First Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Hyundong, attend the joint press conference after their trilateral meeting Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022, at the Iikura guesthouse in Tokyo. Eugene Hoshiko/Pool via REUTERS
When asked about the comments out of Tokyo, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called on all the countries to acknowledge “the root causes of the long-standing impasse” and take steps to enhance mutual trust and address the concerns of all parties in a balanced manner.
North Korea has been carrying out weapons tests at an unprecedented pace this year, firing more than two dozen ballistic missiles, including one that flew over Japan.
Angered by South Korea’s military activities, Pyongyang last week fired hundreds of artillery shells off its coasts in what it called a grave warning to its neighbour to the south.
In September, the USS Ronald Reagan and accompanying ships conducted joint military exercises with South Korean forces in response to a North Korean ballistic missile test in what was their first joint military training involving a US aircraft carrier since 2017.
In response, the United States, South Korea and Japan have committed to deepening cooperation, Mori said.
“We agreed to further strengthen deterrence and response capability of the Japan-U.S. alliance and the U.S.-South Korea alliance, and to promote further security cooperation among the three countries,” Mori said.
On mounting tensions between China and Taiwan, Sherman reiterated the United States’ stance that it does not support Taiwan’s independence, but that it does not stop it from working with Japan and South Korea to help Taiwan protect itself.
“United States has repeated publicly that we do not support Taiwan’s independence, but we want to ensure that there is peace, and so we will be doing whatever we can to support Taiwan and to work with Japan and with Republic of Korea to ensure that Taiwan can defend itself,” Sherman said.
At a Communist Party meeting this month, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for accelerating China’s plans to build a world-class military and said his country would never renounce the right to use force to resolve the Taiwan issue.
China claims democratically ruled Taiwan as its own territory, while Taiwan’s government strongly objects to China’s sovereignty claims and says only the island’s 23 million people can decide its future.
Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo, Additional reporting by Hyonhee Shin, Soo-hyang Choi and Josh Smith in Seoul, and Eduardo Baptista in Beijing;
Writing by Chang-Ran Kim;
Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore
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SEOUL, Oct 24 (Reuters) – North and South Korea exchanged warning shots off the west coast on Monday, accusing each other of breaching their western maritime border amid heightened military tension.
The South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it broadcast warnings and fired warning shots to see off a North Korean merchant vessel that crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto sea boundary, at around 3:40 a.m. (1840 GMT Sunday).
The North’s military said it fired 10 artillery shells after a South Korean navy ship violated the NLL and fired warning shots “on the pretext of tracking down an unidentified ship,” according to state media.
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“We ordered initial countermeasures to strongly expel the enemy warship by firing 10 shells of multiple rocket launchers near the waters where the enemy movement occurred,” a spokesperson for the General Staff of the North’s Korean People’s Army said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
The JCS said it had conducted a “normal operation” over the border intrusion, and called the North’s move a “provocation” and a violation of a 2018 bilateral military pact banning “hostile acts” in the border areas.
“We once again urge North Korea to immediately cease consistent provocations and accusations which harm the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula as well as the international community,” the JCS said in a statement.
The latest exchange of fire came amid simmering tension, with the North carrying out weapons tests at an unprecedented pace this year.
In recent weeks, North Korea launched short-range ballistic missiles and hundreds of artillery rounds off its east and west coasts on several occasions in protest over the South’s military activities.
South Korea’s troops kicked off their annual Hoguk defence drills last week, designed to run until Oct. 28 and boost their own and combined ability with the United States to counter the North’s nuclear and missile threats.
Pyongyang has angrily reacted to the drills, calling them provocations and threatening countermeasures. Seoul and Washington say their exercises are defensive and aimed at deterring the North.
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Reporting by Soo-hyang Choi and Hyonhee Shin; editing by Diane Craft and Stephen Coates
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
