[Breaking] North Korea Fires One Medium-Long Range Ballistic Missile or Above

17 Days After Short-Range Ballistic Missile Launch Last Month

On the 13th, North Korea launched a medium- to long-range ballistic missile into the East Sea. This marks 17 days since North Korea last fired a ballistic missile, a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) that exploded in the air at an altitude of 500 meters on the 27th of last month. This is the ninth ballistic missile provocation this year.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The Joint Chiefs of Staff stated, "At around 7:23 a.m. on this day, one medium- to long-range ballistic missile or above was launched from near Pyongyang toward the East Sea."

The Japanese government initially issued a warning, anticipating that the ballistic missile launched by North Korea toward the East Sea would fall near Hokkaido, but later corrected the warning, stating that the possibility of it falling there had diminished. At around 7:55 a.m., the Japanese government issued an alert through the nationwide warning system (J-ALERT), which urgently delivers information to local governments via satellite, stating, "A missile is expected to fall near Hokkaido around 8 a.m.," and advised people to "immediately take shelter inside buildings or underground."

North Korea had not responded to regular calls through the inter-Korean joint liaison office and the West and East Sea military communication lines since the 7th, before carrying out this provocation.

This provocation occurred two days after North Korean media reported on the 11th that Kim Jong Un, Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of North Korea, presided over the 6th expanded meeting of the 8th Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party, emphasizing the "need to further offensively expand and effectively operate war deterrence capabilities." At this meeting, Kim Jong Un appeared to give instructions by pointing with his finger at the U.S. military base in Pyeongtaek and other major targets in the South, using an 'operational map' that specified key targets in the southern region.

North Korea has consistently continued its military demonstrations by unveiling weapon systems, such as the sudden public reveal of the tactical nuclear warhead 'Hwaseon-31' on the 28th of last month, and reporting an underwater explosion test of the nuclear-powered unmanned attack submarine 'Haeil-2' on the 8th of this month.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.