North Korea fires ballistic missile at sea, Seoul says

Seoul, South Korea — South Korea’s military said it detected that North Korea had fired a short-range ballistic missile into waters off its west coast on Thursday.

The Southern Joint Chiefs of Staff said the weapon was fired at around 6:20 p.m. from an area around the western coastal town of Nampo. He did not immediately release an estimate of how far the missile had traveled.

The launch came after the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned on Tuesday that her country was ready to take “swift and crushing action” against the United States and South Korea as allies expand their military training to deal with North Korean growth. nuclear threat.

After a record year of missile testing, North Korea has conducted further weapons demonstrations through 2023, including test launches of an intercontinental ballistic missile, short-range missiles and a alleged long-range cruise missile system in recent weeks.

Experts say North Korea’s arms push is aimed at forcing the United States to accept it as a nuclear power and negotiate much-needed economic concessions from a position of strength.

Last week, the South Korean and U.S. militaries announced they would hold computer-simulated command post training from March 13-23 and resume their largest field exercises in the spring, which took place to last seen in 2018. The United States also recently sent advanced warplanes, including the B-1B and B-52 long-range bombers, to train with South Korean planes in a show of force , sparking protests from North Korea, which describes joint allied drills as invasion rehearsals.

The allies had canceled or scaled back some of their regular drills since 2018 to bolster now-dormant diplomacy with North Korea and guard against the COVID-19 pandemic. But they reinstated their exercises after North Korea tested dozens of missiles last year and threatened to use its nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with rivals.