“We strongly condemn this and North Korea’s other recent missile tests, which violate UN Security Council Resolutions explicitly prohibiting North Korea’s launches using ballistic missile technology”, said Pentagon Spokesman Navy Commander Gary Ross.
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Meanwhile, China’s Xinhua news agency says President Xi told his South Korean counterpart that Beijing opposes deployment of the us -built THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) anti-missile system in South Korea.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the three ballistic missiles, all believed to be Rodongs, were launched from the western North Korean town of Hwangju and flew across the country before splashing into the sea. They landed in the Sea of Japan 125 to 155 miles west of Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s main islands, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said.
Ross said this provocation only serves to increase the global community’s resolve to counter the DPRK’s prohibited activities, including through implementing existing UN Security Council sanctions.
Shortly after the missile launches, South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met on the sidelines of the G20 summit and agreed to cooperate on monitoring the situation, a Japanese statement said.
She said Pyongyang’s “provocations” gravely damaged peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia.
“There is nothing North Korea can gain from such a provocation”, it added.
“Two of the three missiles are presumed to be intermediate range ballistic missiles”. After the United Nations Security Council in March unanimously approved perhaps the toughest set of punitive measures imposed on the North in two decades, the North appeared to ramp up its missile tests.
Pyongyang says it will not abandon its nuclear “deterrence” unless Washington ends its hostile policy and dissolves the US-led command in South Korea.
In early August, another Rodong missile fired by North Korea also travelled about 1,000 kilometers, the longest-ever flight distance by that missile.
Of course, the issue brought up the THAAD anti-missile system from the U.S.to South Korea.
The North did not issue a no-fly, no-sail warning in the area.
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The allegation, if true, would be a troubling development for China who as a member of the UN Security Council has taken an increasingly hawkish view towards their former ally in recent years voting in favor of sanctions against North Korea for each new missile launch – missiles that the American expert claims that China themselves provided. But the test could strengthen the case in South Korea for deployment of a new US missile defence system.
