North Korea launches two new ballistic missiles

north korea It launched two new ballistic missiles Monday night into Tuesday in what could be interpreted as a calculated response to Monday’s arrival of a US nuclear-powered submarine on the South Korean island of Jeju. News agencies from South Korea and Japan, neighboring countries, said that the missiles, which were fired from the vicinity of the country’s capital, Pyongyang, traveled about 400 km before falling into the sea without causing damage.

The maneuver, which represents a new stake in the region by the regime that rules with an iron fist, Kim Jong Un, comes as the country prepares to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the end of Korean War (1950-53), which divided the peninsula.

Last weekend, Pyongyang also fired cruise missiles from its shores, and in mid-July raised the pulse again by firing a long-range ballistic missile toward Japan while South Korean President Yun Sok Yul and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida were in NATO summit in Vilnius (Lithuania), which more than arouses suspicions in the northern neighbor. Not long ago, North Korea accused Washington of violating its airspace with suspected spy planes and condemned its plans to deploy nuclear missiles from submarines near the Korean peninsula.

Washington condemned the ballistic launches, which “violate many UN Security Council resolutions and pose a threat to its neighbors.” [Corea del Norte] and the international community,” White House Press Secretary Karen Jean-Pierre responded in an appearance in which she stressed that Washington’s commitment to the defense of South Korea and Japan remains “armored.”

Meanwhile, the isolated nuclear nation prepares to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the end of hostilities in the Korean War, as the communist side in the north has the support of China and the Soviet Union, while the south has the support of the United States and the United Nations. Some 2.5 million people have been killed in the fighting, which North Korean propaganda calls the “War for the Liberation of the Fatherland”.

The celebrations will be attended by a Chinese delegation headed by Li Hongzhong, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, one of the highest bodies of power, and a Russian delegation headed by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the North Korean news agency announced. These are the first official visits the country has received since it was closed to the world in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic.

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On the occasion of the docking of the US nuclear submarine in Jeju, the South Korean military leadership also wanted to remember seven decades of cooperation with Washington. on the occasion of the visit [el sumergible] USS AnnapolisHe stated that the South Korean and US navies intend to strengthen the joint defense posture and carry out exchange activities to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the alliance between the two countries, according to Yonhap News Agency.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Command, the multinational mission led by Washington to supervise the Korean War armistice, on Monday managed to start a dialogue with Pyongyang on the matter. Travis King, American Soldier Who crossed into North Korea without permission last week while on a tourist visit to the Demilitarized Zone that has divided the North and South since 1953. The soldier has been in the custody of the tight regime since then, which gave no details of his status.

The talks began through a mechanism stipulated by the Korean War armistice, as explained by Lieutenant-General Andrew Harrison, the British Army officer who serves as deputy commander of the Multinational Force, according to Reuters. “Our primary concern is the welfare of Private King,” Harrison told a news conference, declining to go into detail for fear of “undermining the operation”.

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