North Korea test-fired two short-range ballistic missiles in another show of force Tuesday, a day after the U.S. and South Korea began military drills that Pyongyang views as an invasion rehearsal.
The missiles launched from the southwestern coastal town of Jangyon flew across North Korea before landing in the sea off that country’s east coast, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. It said both missiles travelled about 620 kilometers .The reported flight distances suggest the missiles target South Korea, which hosts about 28,000 U.S. troops. South Korea’s military called the launches “a grave provocation” that undermines stability on the Korean Peninsula.
Worries about North Korea’s nuclear program have grown sharply after the North last year test-fired more than 70 missiles, many of them nuclear-capable weapons, and openly threatened to use them in potential conflicts with the United States and South Korea. Tuesday’s launches were the North’s second weapons test this week. On Monday, North Korea said it had test-fired two cruise missiles from a submarine the previous day. It implied the cruise missiles were being developed to carry nuclear warheads, though outside experts debate whether North Korea possesses functioning nuclear-armed missiles.
The U.S.-South Korean joint exercises that started Monday include computer simulations involving North Korean aggression and other security scenarios and field exercises. The field exercises would return to the scale of the allies’ biggest springtime exercises that were last held in 2018, according to South Korean defense officials.
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