North Korea fired a ballistic missile off its east coast on Saturday, its ninth test since the start of the year, which comes just days before South Korea’s presidential election.
Washington, Seoul and Tokyo have denounced this new test led by Pyongyang, to which they lend the intention of carrying out the test of major weapons in the coming months. North Korea ramped up missile strikes in January, following North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s New Year’s greetings calling for a boost in the country’s military capabilities and amid an impasse in talks on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
This test highlights one of the issues awaiting the winner of the South Korean presidential election scheduled for Wednesday. Incumbent President Moon Jae-in cannot run for another term. “The significant pace with which North Korea is developing its missile technologies is something our country and the region cannot ignore,” Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said.
In South Korea, where polling stations have already opened ahead of Wednesday’s presidential election, the National Security Council (NSC) has condemned “the unprecedented repeated firing of ballistic missiles” carried out by Pyongyang. The NSC has said it will monitor North Korea’s nuclear facilities and missile centers even more closely, according to a statement released by the presidency in Seoul.
Pyongyang also hinted that it could review for the first time since 2017 its moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests, a confidence-building measure taken ahead of the opening of diplomatic talks with the United States. Analysts believe that North Korea could take advantage of the transition period in Seoul to test a major new missile. Washington says it is open to starting talks without preconditions, a hypothesis rejected by Pyongyang which calls for the abandonment of American policies which it describes as “hostile”
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