North Korea fired three ballistic missiles off its east coast in the early hours of Wednesday, Seoul’s army said just days after President Joe Biden completed his first visit to Asia as a U.S. leader.
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that it had “detected around 06.00 (21.00 GMT), 06.37 and 06.42 the ballistic missile fire launched from the Sunan area.”
The Japanese Coast Guard warned of a “possible ballistic missile” launch from North Korea, telling ships to stay away from objects falling into the water.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Tokyo was trying to confirm information about the launch.
New Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol will oversee a National Security Council meeting on Wednesday morning to discuss the releases, his office said. Yoon, who was sworn in earlier this month, has vowed to crack down on Pyongyang after five years of failed diplomacy.
Wednesday’s launches are the latest in a barrage of weapons testing to break Pyongyang’s sanctions this year, including intercontinental ballistic missile-proof missiles for the first time since 2017.
The latest apparent test comes after Biden left South Korea on Sunday after a trip amid concerns that Pyongyang leader Kim Jong-un could conduct a nuclear test while Biden was in the region.
While in South Korea, Biden joined Yoon for talks, including the discussion of extended military exercises to counter the sound of Kim’s sword.
The joint exercises had shrunk because of Covid and because Biden and Yoon’s predecessors, Donald Trump and Moon Jae-in, were embarking on a high-profile but ultimately unsuccessful round of diplomacy with North Korea.
Any accumulation of forces or expansion of joint military exercises would probably infuriate Pyongyang, which sees the exercises as tests for invasion. On his last day in Seoul, Biden told reporters that he only had a short message for Kim: “Hello. Period.”
He added that the United States was “ready for anything North Korea does.”
Kim has recently redoubled its military modernization program. Despite struggling with a recent Covid-19 outbreak, new satellite imagery has indicated that the North has resumed construction of a long-dormant nuclear reactor.
Earlier this month, North Korea confirmed its first Omicron cases in Pyongyang, and the virus has since broken its unvaccinated population of 25 million.
More than 3 million people have been sick with “fever,” North Korea’s state media said on Wednesday, with 68 dead since the outbreak began in late April.
How this crisis could affect Kim’s decision on nuclear testing is one of the many unknowns that have been weighing on US and South Korean officials.
On May 12, North Korea tested ballistic missiles on the same day that Kim declared an “emergency” over the Covid outbreak.
A few days earlier, North Korea tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile, which arrived just three days after a separate ballistic missile launch.
North Korean state media, which typically reports gun tests within 24 hours of a successful launch, have not commented on any of those tests.
South Korea said last week that North Korea’s preparations for a nuclear test had been completed and that they were waiting for the right time.