Pyongyang carried out those shots 48 hours after launching an ICBM, which the UN Secretary-General condemned.
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Posted on 2/20/2023 7:06 AM Updated on 2/20/2023 7:25 AM
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A tour de force. North Korea claimed Monday, February 20, that it fired two missiles it said were capable of a “tactical nuclear strike” capable of completely destroying enemy air bases. According to North Korea’s official agency KCNA, this “exercise” was conducted in response to joint U.S.-South Korea aerial exercises on Sunday. Pyongyang accuses the two allies of being responsible for the worsening of the security situation on the peninsula.
This is the second North Korean launch in 48 hours after launching one of its most powerful ICBMs on Saturday in response to a military exercise planned by Washington and Seoul. The launch of that ICBM, which Tokyo said fell within Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), prompted Washington and Seoul to organize joint aerial maneuvers on Sunday. This launch was “strongly” condemned by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
The UN Security Council meets on Tuesday
In a statement released Monday morning, North Korean leader Kim Yo-jong’s sister warned that Pyongyang would continue to monitor moves by Washington and Seoul to deploy more strategic US assets in the region and vowed to take “appropriate countermeasures.” Danger. “The frequency of using the Pacific as a firing range depends on the nature of the deployment of American forces,” she said in a statement released by KCNA. North Korea claims to have used “super large multiple rocket launchers”.
But for the United States, they are “short-range ballistic missiles,” explains the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank. Thus, the South Korean army claimed on Monday between 7:00 a.m. and 7:11 a.m. (11:00 p.m. and 11:11 p.m. Paris time) to have detected the launching of two short-range ballistic missiles, which had traveled a distance of 390 km, 340 km for the other, before falling in the East Sea, based on the body of water also known as the Sea of Japan.
Seoul called the launch a “serious provocation that undermines peace and stability on the Korean peninsula” and urged Pyongyang to end it “immediately.” At the request of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the United Nations Security Council will meet urgently on Tuesday afternoon in New York.
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