North Korea Fires Ballistic Missile After U.S. Summit With South Korea, Japan

( WSJ )

North Korea fired a ballistic missile off its east coast Thursday, just hours after threatening a fiercer military response to the U.S. bolstering its security presence in the region with its allies South Korea and Japan.

The short-range ballistic missile was fired at 10:48 a.m. local time from the North’s eastern coastal city of Wonsan, Seoul’s military said. The missile hit an estimated altitude of roughly 29 miles, traveling about 149 miles before splashing into waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

In a Thursday statement, North Korea’s Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui warned that the recent summit between the U.S., South Korea and Japan to bolster extended deterrence and counteraction against North Korea will bring the situation on the Korean Peninsula to an “unpredictable phase.”

On Sunday, President Biden met with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts in Cambodia, where the three leaders condemned North Korea’s recent missile tests. Mr. Biden vowed to defend Washington’s allies with a full range of capabilities including nuclear arms.

The Kim regime has conducted more than 30 missile tests in 2022, the most it has launched in a single year. Ms. Choe defended the recent missile tests as “legitimate and just military counteractions” incited by joint military exercises between Washington, Seoul and Tokyo and threatened a more “serious, realistic and inevitable threat” to the U.S. and its vassal forces. The allies have said their exercises are defensive in nature.

Pyongyang’s provocations have drawn international blowback and prompted increased drills by Washington and its allies, which North Korea views as pretext to engage in further provocations. North Korea unleashed its biggest barrage of tests in years, including an intercontinental ballistic missile and a ballistic missile that flew south of the disputed maritime border, triggering an air-raid warning in South Korea.

The U.S. and South Korea expanded military exercises and resumed trilateral training with Japan in response to North Korea’s expanding nuclear and missile threat. The U.S. Air Force deployed B-1B strategic bombers in the joint drills this year for the first time since 2017.

Washington and Seoul officials have warned Pyongyang stands fully prepared to conduct its first nuclear test since 2017. U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington, Seoul and Tokyo have planned a coordinated response if Pyongyang carries out its seventh nuclear test.

In a joint statement following the trilateral summit on Sunday, the leaders of the U.S., South Korea and Japan said a nuclear test will be met with a “strong and resolute response” and agreed to work together to close gaps in the international sanctions regime. The three leaders also agreed to share North Korean missile warning data in real time to improve the ability to detect and assess the threat posed by the missiles.

During his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, Mr. Biden said Beijing had an obligation to attempt to talk North Korea out of resuming nuclear testing. Mr. Biden said Washington’s response to a nuclear test “may be more up in the face of China.”

The Biden administration has offered to meet North Korea without preconditions, but the Kim regime has ignored the outreach. The two sides haven’t held formal nuclear talks in more than three years.