North Korea fired several suspected short-range surface-to-ship cruise missiles off its east coast Thursday, South Korea’s military said, in a continuation of weapons launches that have rattled Washington and the North’s neighbors as Pyongyang seeks to build a nuclear missile capable of reaching the continental United States.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the launch came from the North Korean eastern coastal town of Wonsan, and that the projectiles likely flew about 200 kilometers (about 125 miles) with an apogee of about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles).
The North’s missile tests present a difficult challenge to new South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a liberal elected last month who has expressed a desire to reach out to Pyongyang. North Korea, which could have a working nuclear-tipped ICBM in the next several years, may also be the most urgent foreign policy concern for the Trump administration, which has been distracted by domestic political turmoil and has insisted China do more to rein in the North’s weapons activities.
The North’s projectiles were fired into waters between South Korea and Japan where U.S. aircraft carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS Ronald Reagan participated in joint exercises with the South Korean navy that ended earlier this week. Roh Jae-cheon, spokesman of Seoul’s JCS, said North Korea with the latest launch would have intended to show off its widening arrange of missiles and also its “precision strike capabilities” on ships in response to the joint drills.
