While the defence ministries of Seoul and Washington vowed to act decisively in response to Pyongyang’s onslaught of missile tests, South Korea reported on Friday that North Korea had fired roughly 80 artillery shells at a sea border area overnight.
On Thursday, North Korea fired off a number of missiles at sea, including an intercontinental ballistic missile that never got off the ground. This prompted the United States and South Korea to prolong their air drills, which infuriated Pyongyang.
The South Korean army reported monitoring more than 80 artillery shells fired at sea by North Korea beginning at midnight on Thursday, describing it as a breach of the 2018 agreement between the two Koreas.
According to a statement from the South Korean Ministry of Defense, the south warned North Korea about the shooting.
According to a joint statement from the two nations, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong Sop made a commitment during a meeting in Washington to look for new actions to demonstrate the “determination and capabilities” of the coalition in the wake of the ongoing North Korean provocations.
As a result of North Korea’s unprecedented number of missile launch tests this year—at least 23 of them on Wednesday alone, as well as the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile on Thursday—tensions have risen.
While it will be North Korea’s first nuclear test since 2017, South Korea and the US claim that the country has finished technical preparations for a nuclear bomb at any time.
Pyongyang, meanwhile, denounced the military drills of the alliance.
Back Jong Chun, secretary of the Central Committee of the North Korean government’s Labor Party, stated on Thursday that Washington and Soul’s decision to continue the training was extremely risky and that it “graduated” the situation from under control.
Back predicted that South Korea and the United States would realise they made a grave error that was irreversible.
Diplomats reported that other Council members, including Britain, France, Albania, Ireland, and Norway, had requested that the UN Security Council meet publicly on Friday to discuss North Korea.
The Security Council has long prevented North Korea from conducting nuclear tests and launching ballistic missiles, and the Council tightened sanctions on Pyongyang over the years in an attempt to cut funding for these programs.
The 15-year-old council, however, has been divided in recent years over how to handle North Korea, and in May, China and Russia used their veto power to block a US-led effort to impose additional UN sanctions in response to missile launches from Korea.
80 artillery projectiles are fired by North Korea at the frontiers of its southern neighbour.
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