North Korea yesterday test-fired what appeared to be a hypersonic missile off its east coast, but it exploded in midair, South Korea’s military said.
The missile was launched from near the capital, Pyongyang, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
The Japanese Ministry of Defense said the missile flew to an altitude of about 100km and laterally more than 200km.
Photo: AFP
Senior officials of South Korea, the US and Japan held a telephone call and condemned the launch as a contravention of multiple UN Security Council resolutions and a serious threat to the peace and stability of the region and beyond.
The South Korean and US air forces said they conducted joint exercises involving F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters as part of their annual Buddy Squadron training.
South Korea’s marine corps staged separate firing drills near the maritime border with the North for the first time since Seoul scrapped an inter-Korean military pact early this month. The drills were announced earlier this month.
The US Indo-Pacific Command also issued a condemnation and called on Pyongyang to refrain from further “unlawful and destabilizing” acts.
“While we have assessed that this event does not pose an immediate threat to US personnel, or territory, or to our allies, we continue to monitor the situation,” it said in a statement.
North Korea’s previous known missile launch was on May 30.
The latest missile launch comes a day after the 74th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War.
The North’s Korean Central News Agency yesterday said a mass rally in Pyongyang was held to commemorate the anniversary, calling it a day of “struggle against US imperialism” and calling the US its archenemy.
Recently, North Korea has flown hundreds of balloons carrying trash toward the South.
Takeoffs and landings at South Korea’s Incheon International Airport yesterday were disrupted for about three hours before dawn because of balloons launched by North Korea filled with refuse, an airport spokesperson said.
One balloon landed on the tarmac near passenger Terminal 2 and the three runways at Incheon were temporarily shut down, the spokesperson said.
The disruption to domestic and international flights occurred between 1:46am and 4:44am, and the runways have since reopened, Incheon International Airport Corp said.
CIVILIAN SIGHTING: Fishers from Penghu County took a photograph of a Chinese guided-missile destroyer near the median line of the Taiwan Strait China sent 77 military aircraft around Taiwan over a two-day period ending yesterday morning, an uptick in its activity over the past few weeks. Forty-one Chinese military aircraft were detected in the vicinity of Taiwan in the 24-hour period that ended at 6am yesterday, with 23 crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait and nine crossing its extension, entering the country’s northern, southwestern and eastern air defense identification zones (ADIZs), flight routes released yesterday by the Ministry of National Defense showed. Of the nine aircraft that crossed the median line’s extension, were seven fighter jets and two drones that flew around
ESCALATING TENSIONS: The US called for restraint and meaningful dialogue after Beijing threatened Taiwanese independence advocates with the death sentence The US on Monday condemned China’s “escalatory and destabilizing language and actions” toward Taiwan after Beijing last week announced new guidelines to punish supporters of Taiwanese independence. Asked about the guidelines, which included the death sentence for “diehard” independence advocates, US Department of State spokesman Matthew Miller said: “We strongly condemn the escalatory and destabilizing language and actions from PRC [People’s Republic of China] officials.” “We continue to urge restraint and no unilateral change to the status quo,” he said at the press briefing. The US urges China to “engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan,” Miller said, adding that “threats and legal
UNDER THE RADAR: Two US deputy assistant state secretaries visited Taiwan and met with foreign diplomats to discuss how to boost the nation’s international participation US officials who visited Taiwan earlier this week met with foreign representatives and told them that UN Resolution 2758 does not involve Taiwan nor should it be conflated with China’s “one China” principle, sources said yesterday. UN Resolution 2758 recognized the People’s Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China in 1971. Beijing has been misrepresenting it to exclude Taiwan from the international organization and its affiliates. A representative to Taiwan, requesting anonymity, quoted the US officials as saying during a meeting that as long as it is not specified in UN Resolution 2758, “everything is feasible” with regard to
DEATH THREAT: A MAC official said that it has urged Beijing to avoid creating barriers that would impede exchanges across the Strait, but it continues to do so People should avoid unnecessary travel to China after Beijing issued 22 guidelines allowing its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death “Taiwan independence separatists,” the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday as it raised its travel alert for China, including Hong Kong and Macau, to “orange.” The guidelines published last week “severely threaten the personal safety of Taiwanese traveling to China, Hong Kong and Macau,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference in Taipei. “Following a comprehensive assessment, the government considers it necessary to elevate the travel alert to orange from yellow,” Liang said. Beijing has