The missile fired from a submarine off the eastern North Korean coastal town of Sinpo reached into Japan’s air defense identification zone, according to Seoul and Tokyo officials.
Advertisement
The U.N. Command statement came a day after US and South Korean troops began annual drills despite North Korean threats to retaliate against the exercises, which it says are a rehearsal for an invasion.
US and South Korea began Monday the Ulchi-Freedom Guardian large-scale military exercise, the computerized command and control implementation, which mainly focuses on defending South Korea from a possible North Korean attack.
Current UN resolutions prohibit North Korea from any use of ballistic missile technology, but Pyongyang has continued to carry out numerous launches following its fourth nuclear test in January.
Though North Korea has aimed to improve its nuclear and missile capabilities, it has yet to pair the two successfully. -South Korea military exercise that began Monday, on top of already deteriorating relations with the us and the South.
South Korean President Park Guen-hye told her National Security Council on Monday that Thae’s defection was a sign of “serious cracks” in North Korea’s ruling structure. North Korean state media did not immediately respond to the South Korean and U.N. Command statements.
An underwater test-firing of a strategic submarine ballistic missile is seen in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang on April 24, 2016.
The distance of the flight indicated the North’s push to develop a submarine-launched missile system was paying off, officials and rocketry experts said.
South Korean officials confirmed on August 17 that Tae, a minister at the North Korean Embassy in London, defected to the South with his family in a rare defection of a high-ranking government official.
Land mines were spread on most parts of the border area and laced with barbed wire.
Roughly 1,280 North Koreans defected to South Korea a year ago, according to the South’s Ministry of Unification.
“Our decision to deploy THAAD was to protect us as North Korea has not been giving up its nuclear ambitions and continues with provocations”.
Advertisement
One official quoted by Yonhap said North Korea might be laying the mines to keep its own soldiers from attempting to defect to the South.
