North Korea has fired ballistic missiles for the second time in less than a week.
The launches took place at around 6:50 a.m. in South Phyongan Province, north of the North Korean capital of Pyongyong, South Korean media cited Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff as saying. The missiles were tracked flying about 250 miles on a northeastern trajectory.
In spite of United Nations Security Council sanctions intended to limit the nuclear-armed country’s advancing ballistic missile program, the Kim Jong Un regime has already test-fired missiles on more than 30 occasions, including both short- and intermediate-range missiles and one the country said carried a hypersonic glide vehicle.
Seoul’s defense authorities condemned the North’s steady stream of missile launches, calling them “clear acts of provocation seriously threatening peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.”
Japan’s defense ministry estimated that the missiles came down “near the eastern coast of North Korea’s interior.”
North Korea had not released a public statement on the latest launches as of publication time. Newsweek reached out to the North Korean embassy in China via email outside of office hours.
A woman walks past a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a train station in Seoul on September 18, 2024. It was Pyongyang’s second such weapons test in a week.
Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images
The United States Indo-Pacific Command likewise condemned the event and said it was “consulting closely with the Republic of Korea and Japan, as well as other regional allies and partners.” The Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are the official names for South and North Korea, respectively.
The command called on the North to “refrain from further unlawful and destabilizing acts” The statement reiteriterated Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to Seoul and Tokyo but said the launches had threatened U.S. or allied personnel or territory.
The latest launch came just six days after the South Korea reported multiple missiles had been fired from the vicinity of Pyongyang.
During Kim Jong Un‘s 13 years of rule, the country has carried out over 236 tests of missiles that can travel at least 300 kilometers (186 miles) and carry payloads weighing at least 500 kilograms (1,102 pounds), according to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies North Korea Missile Test Database.
The figure represents a 13-fold increase over the number of missiles launched by the 40-year old leader’s father and predecessor, Kim Jong Il, between 1994 and his death in 2011.
North Korea has publicly released photos to illustrate its ongoing missile tests and buildup. Last month Kim presided over a handover ceremony for 250 truck-mounted missile launchers marked for deployment near the heavily militarized border with South Korea.
Relations between North and South Korea have reached their lowest point in decades after a brief warming period in the late 2010s. Tensions over the past year have flared further over a range of issues including the North’s ongoing spate of missile tests and launch of a spy satellite, South Korean activists’ anti-Kim propaganda and Northern retaliatory trash balloons.
