Acting South Korean President Choi Sang-mok condemned the launches, saying they violated United Nations Security Council resolutions: “Seoul will respond more firmly to North Korea’s provocations based on its strong security position and its alliance with the United States.
Seoul and Tokyo reaffirm their desire to cooperate with the USA against North Korea
“Pression”
This launch “could indicate an intention to exert pressure before the second term of the Trump administration,” said Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
During his first term (2017-2021), Donald Trump made very personal attempts at rapprochement with Kim Jong Un, whom he met three times.
Although he had failed to get North Korea to renounce its nuclear weapons program, for which the country is heavily sanctioned by the UN, this rapprochement had still reduced tensions between the two Koreas. .
Since then, in 2022, North Korea declared its status as a nuclear power “irreversible”, and even engraved it the following year in its Constitution. Its army has carried out numerous tests of weapons banned by the United Nations, including last October of a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
Tuesday’s launch comes a week after Pyongyang fired what North Korean leader Kim Jong Un billed as “an intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile” intended to deter “all rivals” of the country in the Pacific region.
It took place while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting South Korea.
North Korea launches missile during Blinken’s visit to Seoul, US and Seoul condemn
-Pyongyang-Moscow rapprochement
According to Ahn Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher who heads the Global Institute for North Korea Studies, Tuesday’s launch could be aimed at “destabilizing South Korea during the period of turmoil in Seoul,” the president said. deposed South Korean Yoon Suk Yeol faces arrest after his failed attempt to impose martial law in early December.
It could also aim to test “missiles intended to be exported to Russia for use in Ukraine”, he adds.
Pyongyag and Moscow have become closer and notably signed a pact last year which provides in particular for “mutual assistance in the event of aggression” by a third country.
Seoul, kyiv and Washington also claim that North Korea has deployed more than 10,000 troops to Russia since last October to help Moscow in its war effort against Ukraine. Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang have confirmed.
South Korean intelligence estimated Monday that more than 300 North Korean troops were killed and 2,700 wounded.
During his visit to Seoul, Blinken said the Moscow and Pyongyang countries were working increasingly closely on advanced space technologies.
Mr. Blinken also expressed concerns that Russia, a veto-wielding member of the United Nations Security Council, would formally accept North Korea as a nuclear state, which would deal a blow to the global consensus that Pyongyang must end its program.
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