North Korea fires missile after rejecting Seoul apology — SkimNews
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- North Korea launched a ballistic missile from the Wonsan area at approximately 6:30am Saturday toward the East Sea, flying more than 700km, according to South Korea's military, with Japan also reporting a probable ballistic missile launch.
- Kim Yo-jong called Seoul "really despicable" on Friday and ridiculed President Lee Jae Myung's dialogue overture as "the climax of the farce that everyone should watch," while warning Pyongyang was "ready for anything" Seoul might do over the mine blast.
- South Korea blamed North Korean mines for an explosion that injured three of its soldiers during a reconnaissance mission inside the 4km-wide DMZ buffer zone earlier in the week, triggering Seoul's demand for an apology.
- South Korea's national security council convened an emergency meeting Saturday, and Seoul said it was analyzing the test together with Washington and sharing intelligence with Japan.
- North Korea has launched missiles on more than 10 occasions this year, some after protesting joint Seoul-Washington military drills, and has disavowed unification as a national goal, calling South Korea its "primary foe."
- Analyst Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute said the launch may have been aimed at drawing a South Korean response to Kim Yo-jong's statement or testing a new missile type.
Why it matters: By pairing a 700km missile launch with a personal attack on President Lee's olive branch, Pyongyang is signaling it intends to answer Seoul's new diplomatic opening with escalation, not reciprocity. The emergency Seoul-Washington-Japan intelligence coordination shows the three allies are treating the test as a regional security event, not a bilateral spat, raising the cost of any further North Korean provocation in the DMZ.
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