North Korea has fired a short-range ballistic missile off its east coast, according to the South Korean military on Nov. 17, marking the first missile firing in just over a week.
The statement from South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected Pyongyang’s launch from the Wonsan area in Kangwon Province at 10:48 a.m. It didn’t provide further details.
It was the first launch in eight days; Pyongyang last fired a short-range ballistic missile into the East Sea on Nov. 9. It’s also the latest in its series of missile tests in recent months.
The latest launch comes just hours after North Korea threatened to launch “fiercer” military actions toward the United States if Washington opts to continue with its security commitment to help defend its allies in the region.
North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui warned on Nov. 17 prior to the missile launch that a recent U.S.–South Korea–Japan summit accord on the North would leave tensions on the Korean Peninsula “more unpredictable.”
During a separate meeting with Kishida on the same day, Biden “reaffirmed the U.S. extended deterrence commitment to [South Korea] using the full range of U.S. defense capabilities, including nuclear, conventional, and missile defense capabilities and emphasized the U.S. commitment to identify additional steps to further reinforce deterrence in the face of [North Korea’s] nuclear threats,” according to a statement from the White House.
Yoon noted on Nov. 13 that since he took office in May, North Korea has launched about 50 missiles, with “intensive” missile firing from the end of October.
Those missiles came amid joint drills between U.S., South Korean, and Japanese troops. Those drills involved a U.S. aircraft carrier and U.S. B-1B supersonic bombers for the first time since 2017.
In the past several years, annual military training between Seoul and Washington had been scaled back or canceled, in part to support now-dormant diplomacy with North Korea and guard against the COVID-19 pandemic.
