This is the North’s first test-firing since Seoul and Washington announced last Wednesday that they would deploy the THAAD system to Seongju, a lightly populated county in the southern part of South Korea.
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Koreans living in the U.S. hoping to collect 100,000 signatures by August 14, which would garner response from USA government As tension mounts in South Korean society following the government’s announcement of its decision to deploy the American missile defense system THAAD in Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province, an online petition to withdraw the decision had been posted to the White House website.
North Korea is prohibited from developing ballistic missile technology by United Nations resolutions and test-firing of three missiles was in gross violation of these resolutions.
The missiles were launched from an area in the North’s western region called Hwangju between 5:45 a.m.
The media also clearly stated that the North will not stop its development of their ballistic missiles, a practice recently criticized by the South Korean President as “acts of threatening the peace of global society”, during a recent Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM).
“The threat to our national security is growing very quickly in a short period of time”, South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn told parliament on Tuesday.
But the Scud and Rodong missiles test fired on Tuesday are based on old Soviet designs that are considered “entry level” ballistic missiles and inaccurate weapons that do not use sophisticated technology.
The zoomed-in version of the map, entitled “Strategic Force’s firepower strike plan” showed the launches were conducted from somewhere in North Hwanghae Province as South Korean reports said on Tuesday.
North Korea has boasted about the successful completion of its latest ballistic missile test which demonstrated Pyongyang’s capability to launch a pre-emptive strike on South Korea’s ports and airfields hosting the “US imperialists’ nuclear war hardware”. He said North Korea now uses a more sophisticated espionage communication method known as steganography, in which secret messages are hidden within audio and video files.
Pyongyang last week said it would take “physical action” after Washington and Seoul announced the deployment of a sophisticated United States anti-missile defence system.
For decades after the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, the rival Koreas sent agents across their heavily fortified border to infiltrate to each other’s territory.
“The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) determined the missile launches from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America”, a statement from the US military said.
South Korean intelligence authorities are reportedly trying to figure out why Pyongyang resumed this type of communication, particularly in the digital era when it could have simply given out orders via the Internet.
According to the South Korean military, the two Scuds flew between 500 and 600 kilometers (310-370 miles) into the Sea of Japan, while the Rodong was sacked about an hour later.
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Pyongyang also conducted a test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) in April, calling it a “great success” that provided “one more means for powerful nuclear attack”.
