Pyongyang fires another missile towards the South Korean sea

North Korea fired another ballistic missile into South Korean waters on Wednesday — the third test this week as US military drills continue with South Korea, which Pyongyang considers a threat.

According to South Korean authorities, the launch of Pyongyang’s latest missile also occurred hours before South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol traveled to Tokyo for a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida aimed at repairing the strained relations and to consolidate trilateral security cooperation with the United States to counter North Korean threats.

The heads of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of South Korea said the North Korean missile launch took place this morning, but did not provide further details, such as the distance it traveled before it landed in South Korean territorial waters.

The Japanese Ministry of Defense indicated that the missile was fired from a coastal area of ​​North Korea and was expected to land in the sea about an hour later, about 550 kilometers off the North Korean east coast and outside the Economic Zone. Exclusive (ZEE) Japanese.

Pyongyang has already carried out two tests this week, firing cruise missiles from a submarine and also launching short-range ballistic missiles from its territory to a target in the eastern sea.

The weapons tests were expected as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last week ordered the military to be ready to repel what he called “frantic war preparation exercises” by his country’s adversaries. .

Joint US-South Korean military drills, which Pyongyang sees as a rehearsal for an invasion, began on Monday and are expected to run through March 23, including computer simulations and live-fire ground exercises.

Last year, Pyongyang tested more than 70 missiles, including some with nuclear capability, to hit South Korea, Japan and the US mainland, saying many of those tests were warnings after joint US-South military maneuvers. previous Koreans.

The summit between South Korea and Japan was organized after the Yoon government last week took a major step towards repairing strained bilateral relations since Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula between 1910 and 1945.

President Yoon’s executive declared that he would use local funds to compensate Korean citizens subjected to industrial slave labor during the Japanese colonial period without contributions from the Japanese companies that employed them.

The plan, which has triggered strong domestic opposition, reflects the Yoon government’s determination to improve relations with Japan and boost security cooperation between Seoul, Tokyo and Washington.

Under Kishida’s rule, Tokyo also made a major break with its post-World War II principle of self-defense only, adopting a new national security strategy in December that includes the goals of acquiring pre-emptive strike weapons and cruise missiles to counter the growing threats from North Korea, China and Russia.