SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea launched a ballistic missile on Thursday, warning it would provide “intensified military responses” to efforts by the United States and its allies to boost their military presence in the region.
The South Korean military said a ballistic missile was fired off North Korea’s east coast at 10:48 local time (0248 GMT).
Pyongyang has ramped up missile launches this year, including a possible ICBM, a long-range projectile likely carrying a nuclear warhead.
North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui had criticized the recent summit that brought together the United States, South Korea and Japan a few hours earlier.
US President Joe Biden met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol in Cambodia on Sunday.
Joe Biden had reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to Seoul and Tokyo in this meeting, in particular in terms of defense thanks to “a complete range of (defense) capabilities”, including nuclear weapons.
Choe Son Hui said the military exercises held by the three countries pose a “more serious, realistic and inevitable threat” to them.
“The more the United States focuses on ‘strengthening the deterrence offer’ (which it does) to its allies, the more it escalates its provocative military activities (…) the more the DPRK’s (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) military response will be intense,” he said.
“The United States will realize that it is making a gamble it will surely regret,” Choe Son Hui added.
A spokesman for the South Korean defense ministry explained that the trilateral summit and cooperation between South Korea, Japan and the United States in deterrence are aimed only at responding to the threats posed by North Korea, particularly on the issue of missile and nuclear tests.
(Report Hyonhee Shin and Soo-hyang Choi; French version Camille Raynaud)
