According to South Korean intelligence, North Korea responded to President Donald Trump’s peace overtures on Thursday by launching about a dozen short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) into the Sea of Japan just hours after Trump scaled back U.S.-South Korean military exercises and offered to talk with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the North Korean launch at roughly 5:00 p.m. local time. The missiles originated from somewhere near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, flew for about 185 miles, and landed in the Sea of Japan, which Koreans refer to as the East Sea.
The launch was confirmed in an emergency alert from the office of Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae. The Japanese Coast Guard said the missiles appear to have come down outside of Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
“Under a staunch South Korea-U.S. combined defense posture, our military is closely monitoring various North Korean activities as we maintain the capability and readiness to overwhelmingly respond to any provocation,” the South Korean JCS statement said.
The JCS said it has increased surveillance to detect additional launches, and pledged to share its intelligence with the United States and Japan. The office of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung convened an emergency security meeting to discuss the launch on Thursday.
“With the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise currently under way, the office stressed the need to maintain a thorough readiness posture,” said Lee’s national security office.
Ulchi Freedom Shield is the annual U.S.-South Korean defense exercise that President Donald Trump suddenly reduced in length and scope on Sunday evening, to the apparent surprise of both U.S. and South Korean military officials.
Trump said the exercise was “totally inappropriate and hostile,” acknowledging a longstanding complaint of the North Koreans. Trump also objected to American shouldering the high cost of the exercise, and subsequently told reporters he was unhappy with South Korea for refusing to help the United States against Iran.
“Wait a minute. We have 39,000 soldiers over there guarding you from Kim Jong-un, your next door neighbor, and you’re not going to help us on a very easy military operation in Iran. That’s strange,” the president mused to reporters on Monday.
Trump coupled the reduction in Ulchi Freedom Shield with diplomatic outreach to North Korea, inviting dictator Kim Jong-un to resume talks about denuclearization that concluded without satisfying results during Trump’s first term, and hinting to reporters that Kim had responded positively to his overtures.
On Wednesday, Kim Jong-un’s top adviser and sister, Kim Yo-jong, said, “There has been no communication between the leaders of North Korea and the U.S. that we are aware of.”
“I am not aware of it at all, and perhaps it may be the only thing I do not know as regards the foreign policy of our supreme leadership,” she said sarcastically, but added that she felt the current relationship between American and North Korean leadership was “still excellent.”