North Korea launched three new ballistic missiles this Saturday, at the end of a year 2022 marked by a record number of launches of this type and a spectacular increase in tensions with Seoul and Washington.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected “three short-range ballistic missiles launched by North Korea into the East Sea,” the Korean name for the Sea of Japan, around 8 a.m. (local time) this Saturday. Launched from Chunghwa County, south of Pyongyang, the shells traveled some 350 km before falling into the sea.
record year
These new launches close a record year 2022, during which North Korea launched an unprecedented number of missiles and multiplied hostile gestures towards its neighbors. In particular, it tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in March for the first time in five years. Another North Korean ICBM landed off Japan in November.
Saturday’s launches come five days after a rare incursion by five North Korean drones into southern airspace, one of which landed north of the capital Seoul. Despite deploying fighter jets and attack helicopters for five hours, the South Korean military was unable to intercept these drones, drawing widespread criticism.
The air raid, the first of its kind in five years, was described as “intolerable” by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who vowed to convince North Korea that “provocations will always have harsh consequences” for she. This Thursday, the Army of the South carried out exercises in order to strengthen its anti-drone defense, according to the General Staff.
“Response” shots
Some analysts saw Saturday’s launch as a response to the South Korean Defense Ministry’s announcement Friday of a successful test of a space launcher as part of Seoul’s efforts to increase its satellite reconnaissance and monitoring capabilities.
“The purpose of North Korea’s missile launches today is to respond to Seoul’s solid-propellant space launcher. Pyongyang seems to view this as a competition,” said university professor Yang Moo-jin of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
The new missile launches took place during the grand annual meeting of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, where leader Kim Jong Un and other top officials outline their 2023 goals in key areas including diplomacy, security and the economy. .
“A gift from Kim Jong Un to the people”
Decisions made at this meeting shall be made public by the plan shortly after its adjournment. In previous years, Kim Jong Un used to give a speech on January 1, but recently he changed that tradition to announcements during the Party plenum.
The three shots on Saturday could be “a gift from Kim Jong Un to the people, which marks the end of a record year in terms of missile launches, and a greeting to the plenary session of the Korean Workers’ Party,” said Ahn Chan- he, a researcher specializing in North Korea.
According to him, “Kim is trying to send a message that people can feel safe, because their country is clearly a military power, even if it suffers economically.”
Kim Jong Un said in late November that he wanted to give his country “the most powerful strategic force in the world.” Two months earlier, North Korea had adopted a new doctrine that made its status as a nuclear power “irreversible” and authorized it to carry out a preemptive atomic strike in the event of an existential threat against its regime.
Military cooperation between the United States and South Korea
Seoul and Washington give Pyongyang the intention to carry out another nuclear test soon, which would be the seventh in its history and the first since 2017. North Korean leaders assure that a credible nuclear deterrent is essential for the survival of their country, which says it is constantly threatened with aggression by the United States.
For their part, the United States, South Korea, and Japan have strengthened their military cooperation and joint maneuvers in the face of threats from North Korea, especially since the announcement of Pyongyang’s new doctrine.
But this reinforcement has further irritated North Korea which, through its foreign minister Choe Son Hui, in mid-November promised “fierce” retaliation if it continued.
Source: BFM TV
