North Korea has fired a pair of short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast on Monday, South Koreas military said, two days after the North resumed test activities with an intercontinental ballistic missile launch.
South Korea detected the two launches from a western coastal city, just north of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, on Monday morning, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
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It said South Korea has increased its surveillance posture and maintains a readiness in close coordination with the United States.
Japan’s coast guard also issued warnings about what it called possible ballistic missiles from North Korea.
The coast guard, citing Defense Ministry information, said the first missile was believed to have already landed in the water. Kyodo News said it has landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
Also Monday morning, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, issued a statement warning of armed demonstrations over what she called US deployments of strategic military assets to the Korean Peninsula. She called the US “the worst crazies”.
“The frequency of using the Pacific as our firing range depends on the nature of action of the US forces,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media. “We are well aware of the movement of US forces’ recent strategic offensive means gaining momentum around the Korean Peninsula.”
She did not elaborate, but was able to refer to the US overflight of B-1B long-range bombers on Sunday for separate exercises with South Korea and Japan.
The B-1B deployment came in response to North Korea’s launch of the Hwasong-15 ICBM off its east coast on Saturday in the country’s first missile test since January 1.
North Korea’s state media said on Sunday that the ICBM test was meant to further strengthen its “lethal” nuclear strike capability and verify the reliability of the weapon and the combat readiness of the country’s nuclear force. In her earlier statement on Sunday, Kim Yo Jong threatened to take further forceful steps against upcoming military exercises between the US and South Korea.
North Korea has strongly criticized regular military drills by South Korea and the United States as invasion rehearsals, although the allies say their drills are defensive in nature.
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