North Korea launches missiles during Trump’s South Korea visit
While Trump is in South Korea, North Korea tests cruise missiles. According to Pyongyang, the Yellow Sea tests were intended to impress its “enemies” with its capabilities.
Hours before US President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit South Korea, North Korea has reportedly fired multiple sea-to-surface cruise missiles into its western waters, according to official media.
The missiles, which were fired in the Yellow Sea on Tuesday, flew for more than two hours before precisely hitting targets, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Wednesday.
According to KCNA, senior military official Pak Jong Chon oversaw the test and declared that “significant progress” was being made in building North Korea’s “nuclear forces” as a deterrent to war.
According to Pak, the test’s objective was to evaluate “the reliability of different strategic offensive means and impress their abilities upon the enemies.”
He continued, “It is our responsible mission and duty to continuously toughen the nuclear combat posture.” The military had discovered North Korea’s launch preparations, according to South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff on Wednesday.
The cruise missiles were fired in the nation’s northwest waters at around 3 p.m. (06:00 GMT) on Tuesday.According to the joint chiefs, South Korea and the United States were assessing the weaponry and keeping up a united defence readiness that could respond “dominantly” to any provocation from North Korea.
Following last week’s short-range ballistic missile tests, which it said included a new hypersonic system intended to bolster its nuclear war deterrent, North Korea launched its most recent missiles.
The most recent test took place just hours before Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung were scheduled to meet in Gyeongju, the location of this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) talks.
During his visit to South Korea, where he is also expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump has indicated a desire to meet with Kim. A Trump-Kim meeting is unlikely, according to South Korean authorities.
Kim has stated that he still has “fond memories” of Trump, but he has also stated that he would only be amenable to negotiations if Washington ceased pressuring his nation to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
Since Kim’s high-stakes nuclear negotiations with Trump collapsed in 2019, during the US president’s first term, North Korea has avoided any kind of communication with Washington and Seoul.
Trump met with families of Japanese kidnapped by North Korea in Tokyo on Tuesday before taking off for South Korea, assuring them that “the US is with them all the way” as they pleaded for assistance in finding their loved ones.
In 2002, North Korea finally acknowledged, after years of denial, that it had ordered operatives to abduct 13 Japanese decades before in order to train spies in Japanese language and traditions.
According to Japan, five of the 17 kidnapped individuals were returned home. According to North Korea, eight people have died as of 2019, while four more had never set foot in the nation.
