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North Korea fired several cruise missiles on Sunday morning, the latest in a series of tension-raising moves by the nuclear-armed state, said Seoul military as quoted by AFP.
In an official statement, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, “Our military detected several unidentified cruise missiles fired near waters around North Korea’s Sinpno area at 8:00 am today.
However, it did not specify how many missiles were launched but said it has strengthened monitoring and vigilance and was working with the United States to analyze the latest launch, Reuters reported.
Unlike their ballistic counterparts, the testing of cruise missiles is not banned under current UN sanctions against Pyongyang. Cruise missiles tend to be jet-propelled and fly at a lower altitude than more sophisticated ballistic missiles, making them harder to detect and intercept.
On Thursday, North Korea said it had carried out its first test of a new generation of strategic cruise missiles it is developing, the Pulhwasal-3-31 a day earlier.
North Korea is stepping up confrontation with the United States and its allies, but officials in Washington and Seoul say they have spotted no signs Pyongyang intends to take imminent military action.
Kim Jong Un’s government is likely to continue or even increase provocative steps, officials and analysts say, after it made strides in ballistic missile development, bolstered cooperation with Russia, and scrapped its decades-long goal of peacefully reuniting with South Korea.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have increased in recent months as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continues to accelerate his weapons development and issue provocative threats of nuclear conflict with the US and its Asian allies, as per AP reports.
The US, South Korea, and Japan in response have been expanding their combined military exercises, which Kim portrays as invasion rehearsals, and sharpening their deterrence strategies built around nuclear-capable US assets.
(With inputs from agencies)
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Published: 28 Jan 2024, 08:20 AM IST
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