North Korea has fired two new ballistic missiles on the night of Monday to Tuesday in what can be interpreted as a calculated response to the arrival, on Monday, of a US nuclear-powered submarine on the South Korean island of Jeju. The rockets, launched from the vicinity of Pyongyang, the country’s capital, have traveled nearly 400 kilometers before falling into the sea without causing damage, according to news agencies from South Korea and Japan, neighboring countries.
The exercise, which represents a new stake in the region by the regime that rules with an iron fist, Kim Jong-un, comes as the country prepares to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War (1950-53), which divided the peninsula.
This past weekend, Pyongyang also fired cruise missiles from its shores and in mid-July raised the pulse again with the launch of a long-range ballistic missile towards Japan while South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida were at the NATO summit in Vilnius (Lithuania), something that raises more than suspicions in the northern neighbor. Shortly before, North Korea had accused Washington of violating its airspace with suspected spy planes and condemned its plans to deploy submarine nuclear missiles near the Korean peninsula.
Washington has condemned ballistic launches that “violate multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions and pose a threat to the neighbors of [Corea del Norte] and the international community”, reacted the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, in an appearance in which she stressed that Washington’s commitment to the defense of South Korea and Japan continues to be “armoured”.
Meanwhile, the isolated nuclear country is decked out for the festivities of the 70th anniversary of the end of the fighting in the Korean War, in which the communist side in the north had the support of China and the Soviet Union, while the south had the backing of the United States and the United Nations. In the fighting, which North Korean propaganda calls the “homeland liberation war,” some 2.5 million people died.
The festivities will be attended by a Chinese delegation led by Li Hongzhong, a member of the politburo of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, one of the highest bodies of power, and a Russian delegation, headed by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, as announced by the North Korean news agency. These are the first official visits that the country has received since it was closed to the world in 2020 due to the covid pandemic.
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On the occasion of the docking of the US nuclear submarine in Jeju, the South Korean military command also wanted to remember the seven decades of collaboration with Washington. “On the occasion of the visit of [el sumergible] USS Annapolisthe South Korean and US navies plan to strengthen a combined defense posture and carry out exchange activities in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the alliance” between the two countries, he said, according to the Yonhap news agency.
Meanwhile, the UN Command, the multinational mission led by Washington that oversees the truce from the Korean War, managed on Monday to start dialogue with Pyongyang about Travis King, the American soldier who crossed North Korea without permission last week while on a tourist visit to the demilitarized zone that has divided the north and south since 1953. The soldier has since remained in the custody of the secretive regime, which has not provided details about his situation.
The talks began through a mechanism provided under the Korean War armistice, as explained by Lieutenant General Andrew Harrison, a British army officer who serves as deputy commander of the multinational force, as reported by Reuters. “Our primary concern is the well-being of Private King,” Harrison said at a news conference in which he declined to elaborate for fear of “undermining the process,” he added.
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