North Korea fires multiple ballistic missiles, adding to streak of weapons tests

While maintaining a hard line toward Seoul, North Korea has been ramping up weapons testing as it seeks to expand its arsenal of nuclear-capable systems, including an Oct. 3 test of what the North described as a hypersonic intermediate-range missile designed to evade missile defenses in South Korea and Japan.

North Korea has also conducted other missile tests and live-fire drills and commissioned a new warship as leader Kim Jong Un continues to flaunt his nuclear weapons program while rejecting U.S. and South Korean offers to resume long-stalled diplomacy.

The latest launch came days after South Korea on Friday flight-tested its own domestically developed hypersonic weapon, designed to fly at least five times the speed of sound and evade missile defense systems, which President Lee Jae Myung described as critical in strengthening the South’s conventional defense capabilities. Without directly addressing the growing threat from North Korea, Lee’s office said the hypersonic weapon, once fully developed, would enhance South Korea’s ability to strike key targets by surprise in the “Korean Peninsula theater of operations.”

Jang, the South Korean military official, said the latest North Korean launches likely were intended to advance the country’s missile technologies while also serving as a possible response to South Korea’s hypersonic test.

The South’s presidential national security office called for North Korea to “immediately cease” its repeated ballistic launches, which violate U.N. Security Council resolutions against the North and “do not help manage the current situation on the Korean Peninsula.” Koyari said Japan lodged a protest to North Korea through their embassies in Beijing.

Tensions were further worsened after three South Korean soldiers were injured in land mine explosions last month near the heavily armed inter-Korean border. The South’s military and the U.S.-led United Nations Command concluded the blasts were caused by devices planted by North Korea, which has denied responsibility and ridiculed the South’s demands for an apology.

Kim in recent years has halted all diplomacy and cooperation with South Korea and described the neighbor as a permanent enemy during a prolonged stalemate in larger nuclear negotiations with Washington. He has so far rebuffed U.S. President Donald Trump’s calls to revive their diplomacy, which broke down in 2019, with his government demanding that Washington abandon its “hostile” policy toward Pyongyang and drop demands for North Korea’s denuclearization as a precondition for talks.

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AP writer Mari Yamaguchi contributed from Tokyo.

Kim Tong-hyung, The Associated Press

by The Canadian Press

North Korea fires multiple ballistic missiles, adding to streak of weapons tests

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