South Korea’s military said it fired three air-to-surface missiles on Wednesday in response to the North’s launch of at least 10 missiles, including one that landed near South Korea’s territorial waters.
The South Korean missiles landed in waters close to the border line separating the two countries, “a distance corresponding to the area where the North Korean missile landed,” the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said F-15 and F-16 fighter jets fired the missiles to show that South Korea was ready to respond “severely to any provocation,” according to a statement.
Hours earlier, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol had called the launch of a ballistic missile that landed near southern waters a “provocation by North Korea.” [que] it is a ‘de facto’ territorial invasion”.
It was the first time a North missile had landed “near South Korea’s territorial waters, south of the northern border line” since the peninsula was partitioned, the director of operations for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. , Kang Shin-chul, to reporters.
The missiles fired by North Korea constitute “the most aggressive and threatening manifestation [de força] against the South since 2010,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a researcher at the Seoul-based Sejong Institute. “This is a dangerous and unstable situation” that could lead to armed clashes, he added.
Seoul and Washington are currently conducting the largest joint air exercise in history, dubbed “Storm Watch,” involving hundreds of warplanes from both militaries.
North Korean Marshal and ruling Workers’ Party Secretary Pak Jong Chon said the drills were aggressive, according to official North Korean media.
“If the United States and South Korea attempt to use the armed forces against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea [nome oficial da Coreia do Norte]without fear, the special assets of the DPRK armed forces will carry out their strategic mission without delay,” Pak was quoted as saying by the North’s official KCNA news agency.
The North Korean bailiff added: “The United States and South Korea will have to face a terrible case and pay the most horrible price in history.”
“As far as I can remember, North Korea never made such a provocation when South Korea and the United States were conducting joint drills,” said a professor at Ewa University in Seoul.
“Pyongyang appears to have completed its biggest [medida de] deterrence. This is a serious threat. The North also seems confident in its nuclear capabilities.”
In Japan, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters he wanted to “hold a nationwide security meeting as soon as possible” due to “rising tensions on the Korean peninsula.”
Technically, the two Koreas are still at war, as the 1950-53 conflict ended with the signing of an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
Source: TSF
