Days After US Imposed Sanctions, N Korea Again Fires Projectile. 4th Launch This Month: Seoul

The Indo-US Pacific Command issued a statement on the current missile launch and said that it did not pose any immediate threat to US personnel or its territory or its allies.

People watch a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a railway station in Seoul on January 17, 2022, after North Korea fired an unidentified projectile eastward in the country's fourth suspected weapons test this month according to the South's military. | Photo: AFP

New Delhi: Two suspected ballistic missiles were launched by North Korea into the sea making it Pyongyang’s fourth weapon launch this month. The incident was reported by South Korea’s military which said that the apparent goal of the missile fire was to demonstrate its military might amid withheld diplomacy with the United States and pandemic border closure.

AP reports South Korea’s Chief of Staff as saying that the two short range ballistic missiles were launched from an area known as Sunan which is where Pyongyang’s international airport is located. It added that the two missiles were launched  four minutes apart on Monday morning covering a distance of 380 kilometers on a maximum altitude of 42 kilometres before landing in waters off the country’s northeastern coast. 

The Biden Administration had last week imposed fresh sanctions on six North Korean individuals along with one Russian individual and firm for procuring goods from China and Russia for test missile launch. 

Earlier, Pyongyang had conducted a pair of flight tests of a purported hypersonic missile on January 5 and 11 and also test fired ballistic missiles from a train on Friday. 

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The Indo-US Pacific Command issued a statement on the current missile launch and said that it did not pose any immediate threat to US personnel or its territory or its allies, but also emphasised the destabilising impact of North’s “illicit” weapon programme. Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno also condemned Pyongyang’s action as a threat to peace while the country's Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi said that the missiles landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone. 

South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s office said that he has instructed the officials to make “utmost efforts to ensure stability” on the Korean Peninsula. Members of the National Security Council highlighted the need to revive nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang, it further said.