North Korea test-fired short-range missiles for the first time in 73 days in a sabre-rattling move seen to be aimed at the lead-up to the US presidential election and also test weapons that could potentially be deployed in the Ukraine war.
Thursday’s launch, which involved multiple ballistic missiles, came a week after Pyongyang warned that Seoul and Washington would pay a “dear price” for joint military exercises.
The missiles were launched near Pyongyang’s Sunan airport and travelled roughly 360km east before landing in the Sea of Japan, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, who condemned the launch as a “provocative act that gravely threatens the peace and stability” of the Korean peninsula, vowing a “stern” response.
Lim Eul-chul, a senior researcher at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES), suggested that North Korea had been focused on recovering from recent flooding that devastated its northern regions.