Seoul , May 31 : North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised an artillery demonstration drill of “super-large multiple rocket” launchers aimed at South Korea, Pyongyang state media said on Friday.
The development comes a day after South Korea said North Korea fired about 10 short-range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan on Thursday and days after an unsuccessful satellite rocket launch by Pyongyang.
Kim directly gave an order to organize the “power demonstration firing” that took place Thursday in response to the South Korean Army’s show of force against North Korea’s legitimate exercise of its sovereign rights, according to KCNA as cited by Yonhap.
The drill aimed to show that North Korea will not “hesitate to carry out a preemptive attack by invoking the right to self-defence,” the news agency added.
South Korean military said yesterday that it detected the launch of around 10 short-range ballistic missiles from Pyongyang’s Sunan area, adding they flew about 350 kilometers before falling into the East Sea, also known as Sea of Japan.
The South Korean military also said today that it has detected attempts by North Korea to jam GPS signals for a third straight day.
Earlier this week, North Korea sent hundreds of balloons carrying filth and manure into South Korea in what is considered retaliation against Seoul activists’ campaign of sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.
North Korea has been pursuing its nuclear and missile programs despite criticism by US, Japan,South Korea and other regional allies and partners.
Meanwhile, the United States has condemned North Korea’s May 27 and May 29 launches using ballistic missile technology, which it said is “in direct violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions (UNSCRs).”
These launches, it said, continue North Korea’s “reckless behaviour”, “which poses a grave threat to the Korean Peninsula, the region, and international peace and security and undermine the global non-proliferation regime,” the US State Department said.
“We condemn the DPRK regime’s decision to divert scarce resources away from the North Korean people toward its weapons programs,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
The US has also urged North Korea to “refrain from further provocations and accept our call for engaging in substantive dialogue without preconditions.”
The launches by North Korea coincided with the first visit of Admiral Samuel J Paparo, commander of US Indo-Pacific Command to South Korea.
Paparo reiterated the US’s commitments to a strong defence relationship with South Korea’s armed forces, to extended deterrence, and to trilateral cooperation between the South Korea, Japan, and the US to “enhance interoperability between their respective forces, including defence against illegal missile launches by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
The US-South Korea combined forces “remain ready and postured to protect” the latter against “any threat or adversary, backed by an extensive range of capabilities, including conventional, nuclear and missile defence,” according to a statement.
“Utilization of such capabilities is defensive in nature and intended to maintain alliance readiness,” it added.
The US State Department’s Principal Deputy spokesperson said that China has a responsibility to “rein in and influence some of the malign and bad behaviour that we are seeing.”
Patel was responding in a press briefing to a question on how the United States viewed China’s failure to play its role despite North Korea continuous provocations.
“We continue to believe that there are countries who have a relationship with the DPRK and have influence with the DPRK that have a responsibility to rein in and influence some of the malign and bad behavior that we are seeing, especially a country like the People’s Republic of China, which sits on the UN Security Council. When we’re talking about launches that are in violation of certain UN Security Council resolutions, it’s of course incredibly concerning,” he said. (Agencies)
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