Japan, along with the United States and South Korea, condemned North Korea’s ballistic missile launches Wednesday, including one that landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone, and pressed for a quick U.N. Security Council response.
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A missile fired from North Korea landed in the sea off the Japanese coast, in a launch condemned as “outrageous” and a danger to peace in the region.
While some of North Korea’s recent missile launches, especially of the Musudan-type missile, appear to have been failures, analysts say that the North’s scientists are honing their technology with every test.
Pyongyang’s ally China has said Washington’s decision last month to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system would only worsen tensions on the Korean peninsula.
But it failed to adopt a press statement back in July, … with China reportedly raising opposition to the draft statement in protest against the South Korea-U.S. decision to deploy the THAAD missile defense system to the Korean peninsula.
On June 23, the council adopted a statement condemning North Korea for two medium-range missile tests.
Among U.S. allies, there was sharp condemnation Wednesday of North Korea’s latest defiance of a United Nations ban on missile testing.
While Jens Stoltenberg, general secretary of the NATO alliance of which Britain is a part, demanded North Korea pack it in.
Japan’s ministry of defense said the second landed inside a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone where Japan claims sovereign rights to exploitation and exploration of resources – the first time a North Korean missile had encroached upon that zone, according to Japanese media.
The United States, Japan and 10 other countries, including Australia, have requested a UN investigation of the North’s ballistic missile tests that could lead to more targeted sanctions, according to a joint letter obtained by the AFP news agency.
The Rodong is a scaled-up Scud variant with a maximum range of around 1,300 km.
And at the end of July, the North held a ballistic missile test simulating a strike on South Korean ports and airfields, which are heavily operated by USA military forces.
And Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said it posed a grave threat to Japan’s security, calling it an “unforgiveable act of violence”.
“He said: “[The missile launch] is a good example that shows how the North’s missile threats can be materialising in reality”.
An anti-missile system won’t completely protect South Korea.
After Tokyo called North Korea a key threat in its Defence White Paper published on Tuesday, Pyongyang may have found it “rewarding and worthwhile” to test a missile just to ruffle Tokyo’s feathers, said Dr Lee Seong Hyon of the Sejong Institute think-tank.
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“North Korea might thus be deliberately making things even more hard for China which has all along voiced its strong stance against Thaad”. It said it had miniaturised a nuclear warhead and successfully tested an engine designed for an inter-continental ballistic missile that could reach the USA mainland.
