Pyongyang’s announcement came following the two allies staged large-scale exercises at the Pentagon simulating responses to a North Korean nuclear attack.
North Korean news agency KCNA said Friday that North Korean forces conducted a “strategic cruise missile launch exercise” in the early hours of Thursday and fired four “Hwasal-2” missiles.
It added that the exercises showed “North Korea’s ability to launch deadly nuclear attacks once morest enemy forces.”
The South Korean Ministry of Defense in Seoul questioned this description of the test, stressing that there was a difference between what was announced and what was discovered by the US and South Korean monitoring. She added that the analysis is still ongoing.
Sanctions imposed by the United Nations do not prevent North Korea from launching cruise missiles, but Thursday’s drills came following weapons tests this week, including an intercontinental ballistic missile, that the UN Secretary-General described as “provocative”.
Pyongyang said the criticism was “unfair and unbalanced”. Friday called on the international organization, which met this week to discuss the North Korean launches, to express “strong condemnation” of Seoul and Washington over their joint military exercises.
– More rehearsals –
After a year in which Pyongyang declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear power and launched a record number of missiles, Seoul and Washington have moved to step up joint exercises and redeploy US strategic capabilities in the region.
South Korea is keen to reassure its increasingly anxious people regarding the US commitment to so-called extended deterrence, whereby US capabilities, including nuclear weapons, prevent attacks on allies.
South Korea does not possess atomic weapons and remains formally committed to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, even with increasing calls domestically to consider obtaining nuclear weapons of its own.
Washington and Seoul said in a joint statement that their joint exercises included discussions on “possible options for responding to North Korea’s use of nuclear weapons.”
The joint exercises between the United States and South Korea angered North Korea, which it considers rehearsals for invasion.
Shortly following the exercises at the Pentagon, Pyongyang issued a statement saying that “Washington’s hostile and provocative practices (…) might be considered a declaration of war.”
She added, “The only way to break the vicious circle of escalating military tension (…) is for the United States to show a clear and practical stance, such as abandoning its commitment to deploy strategic capabilities” and stopping joint exercises.
Shortage of nutrients
Relations between the two Koreas are at their lowest levels in years, with talks stalled and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s call for “increased” growth in weapons production, including tactical nuclear weapons.
North Korea test-fired dozens of banned missiles in 2022, sparking tensions among its East Asian neighbors.
Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s influential sister, this week described the Pacific Ocean as a “shooting range”.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry said Friday that North Korea should stop spending on military development while its people are starving.
“The cost of the three ballistic missiles launched this week is enough to buy regarding 100,000 tons of food for regarding two to three million people in vulnerable situations for five months,” Lee Hyo-jung, deputy spokesman for the ministry, told reporters.
South Korean officials recently warned that North Korea might face severe food shortages following years of isolation linked to the pandemic.
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North Korea announced Friday that it had launched four strategic cruise missiles into the sea, in a test it said “once once more demonstrated the war capabilities of the country’s nuclear combat power”.
This test is the latest in a series of provocative tests that have raised tensions on the Korean Peninsula and raised fears that North Korea will conduct its first nuclear test since 2017.
The official North Korean news agency said that the four “Hwasal-2” missiles were launched from the vicinity of the city of Kimchek in North Hamgyong Province towards the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan.
It added that the missiles traveled a distance of 2,000 kilometers before hitting their targets “accurately”, without specifying what those targets were.
The agency also indicated that “the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea expressed its great satisfaction with the results of the launch test.”
“The test once once more clearly demonstrated the war capabilities of the DPRK’s nuclear combat force, which in every way is strengthening its ability to launch a lethal nuclear attack once morest hostile forces,” it added.
