SEOUL: North Korea fired at least 23 missiles into the ocean on Wednesday, including one that landed lower than 60 km(40 long hauls) off South Korea’s seacoast, which South’s President Yoon Suk-yeol described as “territorial encroachment”.
It was the first time a ballistic bullet had landed near the South’s waters since the promontory was divided in 1945, and the most missiles were fired by the North in a single day. South Korea issued rare air raid warnings and launched its own missiles in response.
The bullet landed outside South Korea’s territorial waters, but south of the Northern Limit Line(NLL), a disputed inter-Korean maritime border.
In response, South Korean warplanes fired three air-to-ground missiles into the ocean north across the NLL in response, the South’s service said. A functionary said the munitions used included an AGM-84H/ K SLAM-ER, which is a US-made “stand-off ” perfection attack armament that can fly for over 270 km(170 long hauls) with a 360 kg(800 lb) warhead.
The South’s launches came after Yoon’s office pledged a “nippy and firm response”.
“President Yoon Suk-yeol noted North Korea’s provocation moment was an effective act of territorial encroachment by a bullet intruding the NLL for the first time since( the two Koreas’) division,” his office said in a statement.
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When asked whether the bullet was flying towards the South’s home and should have been interdicted, an elderly presidential functionary said “rigorously speaking, it didn’t land in our home but in the Exclusive Economic Zone under our governance, thus it wasn’t subject to interception.”
That bullet was one of three short-range ballistic missiles fired from the North Korean littoral area of Wonsan into the ocean, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff(JCS) said. The JCS latterly said as numerous as 14 other missiles of colorful types had been fired from North Korea’s east and west beachfront.
The JCS said at least one of the missiles landed 26 km south of the NLL, 57 km from the South Korean megacity of Sokcho, on the eastern seacoast, and 167 km from the islet of Ulleung, where air raid warnings were sounded.
“We heard the temptress at around 855a.m. and all of us in the structure went down to the evacuation place in the basement,” an Ulleung county functionary told Reuters. “We stayed there until we came upstairs at around 915 after hearing that the gunshot fell into the high swell.” The North also fired further than 100 rounds of ordnance from its east seacoast into a service buffer zone established in a military agreement with the South, South Korea’s service said.
The blasting violates a 2018 agreement banning hostile acts in border areas, the JCS said.
The US condemned North Korea’s blasting of further than 20 missiles, calling one bullet’s line across the maritime boundary with South Korea particularly “reckless”. “We. condemn these bullet launches and the DPRK’s reckless decision to fire a bullet below the de facto maritime boundary with the Republic of Korea,” said White House public security spokesperson John Kirby.
