North Korea said on Monday it had tested two strategic cruise missiles from a submarine, as South Korea and the United States began their biggest joint military drills in five years.
Nuclear-armed Pyongyang said the test confirmed its “means of preventing nuclear war in various places” as it criticized the exercises – known as Freedom Shield -. which will run from Monday for 10 days as part of an allied campaign to counter North Korea. Growing risks
“Two strategic cruise missiles accurately hit a predetermined target in the East Sea of the Korean Sea,” JEE News said.
North Korea is technically not barred from firing a cruise missile under current UN sanctions — though its nuclear weapons tests are not permitted.
JEE News report said the experiment was linked to the United States and South Korea “being increasingly exposed in their anti-DPRK military maneuvers”, referring to the North by its official name.
South Korea’s military said it detected at least one unidentified missile fired from a North Korean submarine early Sunday.
Photos and video released by North Korean state media showed the submarine, the “8.24 Yongong,” and a missile flying into the sky from the water behind a plume of white smoke and flames.
Analysts said there remained “significant doubts” about how advanced the North’s submarine program is.
Park Won-gon, a professor at Seoul’s Ewha University, said images from state media showed the missile was fired over water.
“Then there is no point in firing from the submarine because there is no stealth,” Park told JEE News.
“North Korea says weapons have been deployed, but whether we believe that with confidence is another matter.”
Defensive drill
South Korea’s military has said the Freedom Shield drills “include wartime tactics to repel potential North Korean attacks and drive stability in the North”.
He emphasized that the exercise was a “defensive exercise based on a joint operational plan”.
But North Korea sees all such drills as an attack drill and has repeatedly warned it will take “colossal” action in response.
“North Korea is talking in missiles against joint exercises,” said Go Myung-hyun, a researcher at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.
“It wants to emphasize that the reason for developing the missile is for self-defense purposes.”
The foreign ministry in Pyongyang also issued a statement on Monday calling the US “an American diabolical ‘human rights’ racket”, after Washington said it would refer North Korea’s abuses to the United Nations this week. will hold a meeting.
More to come.
Last year, North Korea declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear power and launched a record number of missiles.
Leader Kim Jong-un last week ordered his military to step up drills to prepare for a “real war”.
Washington has repeatedly reiterated its “ironclad” commitment to defend South Korea, including using “the full range of its military capabilities, including nuclear.”
South Korea, for its part, is eager to reassure its increasingly nervous public of so-called extended deterrence, in which US military assets, including nuclear weapons, act to deter attacks on allies.
While the two countries’ official policy toward North Korea — that Kim should give up his nuclear weapons and return to the negotiating table — has not changed, experts say the practical shift has taken place. Is.
The US has “effectively conceded that North Korea will never give up its nuclear program”, An Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher who runs the World Institute for North Korea Studies, told JEE News.
This is the first Freedom Shield exercise since then, which means it will be “very different — both qualitatively and quantitatively — from previous joint exercises that have taken place in recent years”.
Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean army general, said North Korea would likely use it “as an excuse” to double down on its banned weapons programs.
“Further missile launches with variations in style and scope are to be expected from a nuclear test. Further threats from North Korea should not be surprising.”
