North Korea fired 23 missiles on Wednesday, one of which landed near South Korea’s territorial waters, prompting South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol to denounce a “‘de facto’ territorial invasion.” .
After announcing that North Korea had fired at least 17 missiles, the South Korean military said “six more surface-to-air missile launches were detected in east and west directions.”
Three short-range ballistic missiles were launched at 08:51 local time (23:51 Tuesday in Lisbon) and one crossed the so-called ‘Northern Border Line’, the ‘de facto’ maritime divide between the two countries, Seoul said.
The shot triggered a rare air alert on the South Korean island of Ulleungdo, some 120 kilometers east of the Korean peninsula, where residents were advised to take refuge in shelters, according to the French news agency AFP.
It is the “first time since the partition of the peninsula” after the 1953 Korean War that a North Korean missile has landed so close to South Korean territorial waters, the South Korean military said.
South Korea’s president has called a meeting of the National Security Council to discuss the incident, which analysts say is one of the most aggressive and threatening in several years.
Yoon regarded the “North Korean provocation as a ‘de facto’ territorial invasion by a missile that crossed the Northern Border Line for the first time since the division” of the peninsula, the South Korean presidency said in a statement.
He also ordered “swift and severe measures so that North Korea pays a high price for its provocations,” the presidency added, without specifying.
One of the missiles fell into the sea just 57 kilometers from the city of Sokcho in northeastern South Korea, Seoul said.
South Korea has closed several air routes over the Sea of Japan and has advised airlines to take a detour to “ensure passenger safety” on trips to the United States and Japan.
South Korea and the United States are carrying out the largest joint air exercise in their history, dubbed “Storm Watch,” involving hundreds of warplanes.
Marshal Pak Jong Chon, secretary of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, described the exercises as aggressive and provocative, the North’s official media reported on Monday.
Pak said the exercises were called “Operation Desert Storm,” the name given to the US-led coalition’s military operations against Iraq in 1991 after the invasion of Kuwait.
The marshal said that if the United States and South Korea try to attack the country, the “special assets of the armed forces” of the Democratic Republic of Korea “will carry out their strategic mission without delay.”
“The United States and South Korea will pay the most horrible price in history,” Pak threatened, according to state news agency KCNA.
“As far as I remember, North Korea never carried out such a provocation when South Korea and the United States were conducting joint exercises,” Ewha University professor Park Won-gon told AFP.
“This is a serious threat. The North also appears confident in its nuclear capabilities,” he added.
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
