North Korea Fires a Ballistic Missile as Seoul Demands an Apology
North Korea launched a ballistic missile from the Wonsan area towards the East Sea on Saturday morning, flying more than 700km, according to South Korea and Japan. It came a day after Kim Yo-jong dismissed Seoul’s demand for an apology over mines that seriously wounded South Korean soldiers in the demilitarised zone. Japan’s coast guard warned shipping to take precautions.
The launch answers a diplomatic question rather than a military one. President Lee Jae Myung had urged Pyongyang on Thursday to return to dialogue, even as his own military demanded an apology for the mine injuries the day before — an awkward pairing that Kim Jong-un’s sister exploited directly, calling Seoul “really despicable” and dismissing Mr Lee’s overture as “the climax of the farce that everyone should watch”. Firing a missile the next morning is the punctuation on that sentence. South Korea’s military says it has heightened monitoring and will share intelligence with Washington and Tokyo, and the two allies are still analysing the test. The timing is awkward for Mr Lee in a second way: he has spent this week demanding an apology from Ukraine as well, over Kyiv’s disclosure that two North Korean prisoners of war had been sent to the South. Watch whether the North tests anything larger.