North Korea tested two ballistic missiles on Monday but one of them may have flown abnormally, South Korea's military said, a day after the North vowed “offensive and overwhelming” responses to protest a new U.S. military exercise with South Korea and Japan.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the missiles were fired at 10-minute intervals in a northeasterly direction from the city of Jangyon in southeastern North Korea.
It said the first rocket flew 370 miles and the second rocket flew 75 miles, but did not say where they landed. North Korea typically tests missiles toward eastern waters, but the flight distance of the second missile was too short to reach those waters.
Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Lee Sung Joon later told a briefing that the second missile may have undergone an abnormal flight during the first phase of its flight. He said if the rocket exploded, debris would likely be scattered on the ground, although no damage was immediately reported. Lee said additional analysis of the second rocket launch is underway.
South Korean media, citing unidentified South Korean military sources, reported that it was highly likely that the second missile crashed in an inland area of the North. The reports said the first missile landed in waters off the North's eastern city of Chongjin.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff condemned the North's launches as a provocation that poses a serious threat to peace on the Korean Peninsula. According to the report, South Korea remains committed to repelling any provocation from North Korea in connection with its military alliance with the United States.
The launch came two days after South Korea, the U.S. and Japan concluded their new multi-domain trilateral exercises. The “Freedom Edge” exercise drew a U.S. aircraft carrier and destroyers, fighter jets and helicopters from the three countries, and the three countries practiced missile defense, anti-submarine and maritime interdiction exercises.
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On Sunday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry released a lengthy statement strongly condemning the US, South Korea and Japan for their three-way exercise. It called the exercise an Asian version of NATO that openly destroys the security environment on the Korean Peninsula and contained a US intention to put pressure on Russia and besiege China.
The North's foreign ministry said it will “strongly defend the sovereignty, security and interests of the state and peace in the region through offensive and overwhelming countermeasures.”
Monday's launch was the North's first weapons fire in five days. Last Wednesday, North Korea launched what it called a multi-warhead missile in the first known launch of a developmental, advanced weapon intended to defeat U.S. and South Korean missile defenses. North Korea said the launch was successful, but South Korea dismissed North Korea's claim as a deception to cover up a failed launch.
Both launches took place after Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement. a summit in Pyongyang in an effort to expand their economic and military cooperation and strengthen a united front against Washington.
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In recent weeks, North Korea has launched numerous balloons carrying waste toward South Korea, which it described as a tit-for-tat response to South Korean activists who distributed political pamphlets via their own balloons.
Meanwhile, North Korea opened a key ruling party meeting on Friday to determine what it called “important, immediate issues” related to efforts to further strengthen Korean-style socialism. During the second day of the meeting on Saturday, Kim Jong Un discussed “some deviations that are hampering the province's efforts to improve its economic status and unspecified important tasks for resolving immediate policy issues,” the North reported. Korean state media Sunday.
