Hours after condemning the South Korea and the United States military drills that are supposed to go on till March 20, 2025, North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles as they called the SK and US military drill “dangerous provocative act.”
The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command had highly condemned this act by North Korea and mentioned in a statement that it is “aware of the North’s multiple ballistic missile launches and is consulting closely with South Korea and Japan, as well as with other allies and partners in the region.”
While continuing the condemnation for such an act, the command also encouraged Pyongyang to not initiate any more “unlawful and destabilizing acts.” It should be noted here that the military drills that South Korea and America have kickstarted resulted in an accident and caused a lot of damage and injury to 15 people at Pocheon.
Following this accident, an investigation was led into the same and General Lee Youngsu, chief of staff of the South Korean Air Force, had apologized for this unfortunate incident. He also mentioned that something like this “should have never happened and must never happen again.”
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North Korea however, then decided to fire missiles and as reported by Reuters, “South Korea’s military said the missiles were fired from North Korea’s western region toward the Yellow Sea. The launch was the first reported ballistic missile test since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January.”
Reuters further mentioned, “The missiles were believed to be close range ballistic missiles”, a South Korean defence ministry official said, referring to a type of weapon with a range of under 300 km (186 miles). Besides issuing a statement, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has also mentioned that the whole situation is being monitored very closely and also said that despite these attacks, the US or its allies are not under any immediate threat.
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It should be noted here that Donald Trump had met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times during his first term as the President and had also made it clear that he wanted to revive US-North Korean diplomacy. However, nothing affirmative has been received from North Korea’s side and as reported by Aljazeera, North Korea “has maintained its fiery rhetoric against Washington and Seoul over their joint military exercises, which Kim has portrayed as a rehearsal for invasion.”
Aljazeera further mentioned, “In a statement, the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated Kim’s stated goal for ‘radical growth’ of his nuclear force to counter growing threats posed by the US and its Asian allies.”
It now remains to be seen if President Trump addresses this situation in particular and how things develop between North Korea and America from this point.
