The latest launch followed another SLBM launch on July 9, and ballistic missile tests on July 19 and August 3.
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South Korea’s foreign and defense ministers plan to travel to Washington in October to meet their USA counterparts for discussions on ways to better handle North Korea’s growing threats, Seoul’s foreign minister said Sunday.
A group of 21 ruling party lawmakers issued a joint statement on Sunday calling for the introduction of nuclear-powered submarines to better deal with increasing security threats from North Korea.
Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and US Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday condemned North Korea for test-firing a submarine-launched ballistic missile in defiance of United Nations resolutions.
The statement comes just a few hours after the UN Security Council slammed North Korea for launching four missiles over the last two months. Those sanctions reflected growing anger at Pyongyang’s nuclear test in January and a subsequent rocket launch.
North Korea has threatened to fire at lighting equipment being used by the US and South Korean militaries at a village inside the Demilitarized Zone.
On Aug. 24, North Korea test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile, in what its military described as a response to ongoing military drills between South Korea and the U.S. That means all of South Korea, and possibly parts of Japan, are within its striking distance.
Jon said that the latest submarine-launched missile didn’t cause any harm to the security of neighboring countries.
“The DPRK has substantial means capable of reducing aggression troops in the U.S. mainland and the operation theatre in the Pacific to ashes in a moment”, the spokesman added in a statement carried by the North’s official KCNA news agency. He said it showed North Korea’s “great power and inexhaustible strength in the face of the trials of history and the challenges of our enemies”.
North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons development programs have brought heavy worldwide sanctions down on its head, but Pyongyang says they are justified because of the threat posed by the USA and South Korea.
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry accused the US of instigating the statement to deter the country’s “legitimate right to self-defense”.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un on Thursday described the latest SLBM test as the “greatest success” and said it put the United States mainland and the Pacific within striking range.
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Members also expressed “their commitment to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution to the situation” and stressed “the importance of working to reduce tensions in the Korean peninsula and beyond”.
