North Korea Fires 'Unspecified Ballistic Missile', Says South Korea's Military As Concerns Grow Over Nuclear Test

Seoul and Washington have repeatedly warned that North Korea could be close to testing an atomic bomb for the first time since 2017.

File Photo: People watch a TV screen showing a news program reporting about North Korea's missile launch, at a train station in Seoul, South Korea.

Source : PTI

New Delhi: South Korea's military said on Friday that North Korea fired an "unspecified ballistic missile", another launch in a blitz of such tests by Pyongyang.

"North Korea fires unspecified ballistic missile towards the East Sea," Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said referring to the body of water also known as the Sea of Japan, news agency AFP reported.

South Korea's military later stated that it detected two short-range ballistic missiles fired from North Korea's east coast.

Tensions on the peninsula are at their highest point in years after talks between Seoul and Pyongyang reached a stalemate. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last month declared his country an "irreversible" nuclear power, ending negotiations over his banned weapons programmes.

On Tuesday, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said that the North was going to conduct another nuclear test, its seventh.

"It appears they have already completed preparations for a seventh nuclear test," he told parliament Tuesday during a budget speech, as quoted by AFP.

The United States, Japan, and South Korea stated that a North Korean nuclear test would warrant an "unprecedentedly strong response". The leaders vowed unity between the regional security allies.

This month alone, North Korea fired multiple artillery barrages into a maritime "buffer zone" set up in 2018 as a way of reducing tensions with the South during a period of failed diplomacy.

Pyongyang announced that it had staged what it termed as "tactical nuclear drills" that simulated showering the South with nuke-tipped missiles.

Seoul terms the dramatic moves as "provocations" by the North, the escalation included Pyongyang conducting its longest-ever missile launch by distance, which overflew Japan. It also led to rare evacuation warnings.

Recently, South Korea has conducted live-fire drills and the US re-deployed a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the region to conduct large-scale trilateral drills involving Tokyo as well.

Pyongyang sees the drills as rehearsals for invasion and justifies its missile launches as necessary "countermeasures".

Seoul and Washington have repeatedly warned that North Korea could be close to testing an atomic bomb for the first time since 2017.

(With AFP Inputs)