- North Korea announced on Friday that it had launched cruise missiles.
- Asserted that increased military exercises between the US and South Korea.
- North Korea said that the exercise showed off its “deadly nuclear response capacity against the aggressor forces.
North Korea announced on Friday that it had launched cruise missiles and asserted that increased military exercises between the US and South Korea “may be viewed as a declaration of war.”
During a tabletop exercise at the Pentagon when the two countries practised retaliations to a nuclear attack by Pyongyang, it happened.
Four Hwasal-2 missiles were fired during a “strategic cruise missile launching drill” by North Korean military early on Thursday, according to the official Korean Central News Agency on Friday.
North Korea said that the exercise showed off its “deadly nuclear response capacity against the aggressor forces.”
Seoul’s defence ministry disputed that account of the test, claiming that there was a discrepancy between what was declared and what US and South Korean surveillance systems discovered. It further stated that the analysis was ongoing.
Under the current UN sanctions, North Korea is not prohibited from launching cruise missiles, but the rehearsal on Thursday came after several weapons tests this week, including an intercontinental ballistic missile that the UN head referred to as “provocative.”
That condemnation, according to Pyongyang, was “unfair and uneven,” and on Friday it urged the international organisation, which met this week to examine the North Korean launches, to “bitterly denounce” joint military drills between Seoul and Washington.
Added drills
Seoul and Washington have rushed to increase cooperative exercises and relocate US strategic assets to the region after Pyongyang declared itself a “irreversible” nuclear power and shot a record-breaking number of missiles.
Regarding the US’s commitment to so-called extended deterrence, in which US resources, including nuclear weapons, are used to deter assaults on allies, South Korea is eager to assuage its growingly uneasy populace.
Even if there are increasing domestic calls for South Korea to explore acquiring its own nuclear weapons, the country nonetheless maintains an official commitment to nuclear non-proliferation.
According to a joint statement from Washington and Seoul, using North Korea’s official name, discussions on “possible options for responding to DPRK nuclear weapons use” were part of the joint tabletop exercise.
Joint exercises between the US and South Korea enrage North Korea since they are seen as invasion drills there.
Pyongyang said in a statement shortly after the Pentagon exercise that Washington’s “hostile and provocative activities… can be taken as a declaration of war.”
“The only option for the US to show a clear and tangible stand such as abandoning of its commitment to deploying strategic assets” and discontinuing joint drills, it continued, is for the US to do so.
food scarcity
The North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called for a “exponential” rise in the manufacturing of weapons, including tactical nuclear weapons, and relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in decades. Talks have also stopped.
In 2022, North Korea conducted numerous prohibited missile tests, alarmed East Asian neighbours.
Kim Yo Jong, Kim’s influential sister, this week referred to the Pacific as the nation’s “firing range.”
According to South Korea’s unification ministry, North Korea should stop investing in military advancements while its citizens are suffering hungry.
According to Lee Hyo-jung, deputy spokeswoman for the ministry, the cost of the three ballistic missiles it fired this week “is enough to buy around 100,000 tonnes of food for about two to three million vulnerable people for about five months.”
Following years of isolation due to the epidemic, South Korean officials recently issued a warning that North Korea may experience serious food shortages.
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