North Korea has previously fired Rodong and other missiles into the sea but South Korean analysts said Wednesday’s flight was one of the longest.
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South Korea’s military says North Korea has fired a ballistic missile on Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2016 into the sea.
The launched never posed a threat to North America, assured the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), but Japanese officials were reportedly alarmed that one missile landed in or near that country’s territorial waters.
South Korea and the U.S. have recently announced plans to deploy a high-tech USA missile defense system in the South to counter North Korean nuclear and missile threats.
The Japanese defence ministry said one missile landed inside its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), the 200-nautical mile of ocean around a country. Council statements have to be agreed by consensus and previous condemnations of North Korea missile launches have taken days or weeks.
“What our focus has been is working with other like-minded partners in the region, certainly that includes China, in trying to ensure that these sanctions are implemented to the full extent possible so that the DPRK, the North Korean regime, feels the squeeze”, State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said.
While the global community has been unanimous in the condemnation of the North’s actions, top NK diplomat to the United States Han Son Ryol stated that the Communist regime’s launch of the ballistic missiles is an act of self-defense.
The missile appeared to be a Rodong-type medium-range missile that flew about 1,000 km (620 miles), it said.
The news agency wrote that the move was the latest in North Korea’s series of launches to show its defiance of sanctions by the United Nations Security Council that barred the North from developing ballistic missiles.
The new THAAD missile system is not supposed to be operational in South Korea until the end of 2017. North Korea has tested four nuclear bombs since 2006, most recently in January this year.
The Korea Times reported that Pyongyang strongly criticized the decision, and threatened “merciless” missile strikes against both South Korea and the United States.
Wednesday’s launches were the 13th round of missile tests by North Korea this year, or 29 launches in total.
“It is the USA who threatens DPRK with missiles”.
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And tensions on the divided Korean peninsula are also building up ahead of a large-scale South Korea-US military exercise that begins on August 22 and involves tens of thousands of troops.
