North Korea launched this Wednesday ballistic missile towards the sea of Japan after having fired more than thirty projectiles last week that contributed to further raising the tension on the peninsula.
The launch occurs at the moment when the United States counts the votes in the midterm elections for the House of Representatives and the Senate, which the Seoul spy agency had previously warned would be a possible time for Kim Jong Un conduct a long-awaited nuclear test.
According to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, the projectile was fired from the western town of sukchonnorth of the capital, Pyongyang, and flew over the country toward waters off the east coast.
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The South Korean and Japanese militaries said the missile traveled between 250 and 290 kilometers at a maximum altitude of 30 to 50 km. The relatively low trajectory appeared to be in keeping with the flight characteristics of some of North Korea’s new short-range weapons designed to evade missile defenses.
Japan’s Defense Minister, Yasukazu Hamadasaid the projectile fell outside the maritime zone of economic exclusivity of the country and noted that the escalation of North Korean tests had “significantly increased” regional tensions. Tokyo lodged a protest against Pyongyang through its embassies in Beijing.
Seoul’s nuclear envoy, kim gunnheld separate telephone conversations with his US and Japanese counterparts to discuss trilateral cooperation to counter the growing nuclear threat and North Korea’s increased weapons tests, the South’s Foreign Ministry said.
South Korean officials say the North could try to further ratchet up the pressure by holding its first nuclear test from 2017 in the coming weeks.
Wednesday’s incident comes after the North fired dozens of missilesincluding a intercontinental ballistic missilelast week coinciding with the massive joint air exercises in Seoul and Washington that, according to Pyongyang, are an invasion rehearsal.
They recover the remains of a missile launched by the North
Last week Pyongyang also fired a short-range ballistic missile that crossed the de facto maritime border and landed near the South’s territorial waters for the first time since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
This Wednesday, the South Korean military announced that it had recovered the remains of the missile, which was identified as a anti-aircraft gun of Soviet times dating from the 1960s.
Analysis of the three-meter-long piece recovered in waters near the eastern maritime border on Sunday showed that it was one of the SA-5 surface-to-air missiles North Koreans, the South Korean Defense Ministry said. The Russian military used similar shells in ground attacks during its invasion of Ukraine, he added.
The North’s military claimed on Monday that its tests from last week were drills to attack “mercilessly” key South Korean and US targets such as air bases and command operations systems.
According to Pyongyang, it used ballistic missiles loaded with dispersal warheads and of underground infiltration to launch attacks against enemy air bases; surface-to-air missiles designed to “annihilate” enemy aircraft at different heights and distances, and strategic cruise missiles that fell southeast of the South Korean coast.
Last week, the North Korean military launched dozens of projectiles into the sea, including an intercontinental ballistic missile that triggered evacuation warnings in northern Japan, in its angry response to the joint exercises. “Storm Watcher” between the United States and South Korea, which ended on Saturday and in which more than 240 aircraft participated.
The North has increased its testing at a record pace this year as Kim Jong Un take advantage of distraction created by Russian war in Ukraine to speed up weapons development and increase pressure on Washington and its regional allies.
(With information from AP and AFP)
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Source-www.infobae.com