North Korea fires ballistic missiles as Blinken visits Seoul | South China Sea Information

Launches come days after South Korea and the US wrapped up army drills Pyongyang sees as an invasion rehearsal.

North Korea fired short-range ballistic missiles in the direction of its japanese waters as United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken ready to open a democracy summit in neighbouring South Korea, officers have stated.

“North Korea fired an unspecified ballistic missile towards the East Sea,” the US Joint Chiefs of Employees stated on Monday, referring to the physique of water often known as the Sea of Japan.

Japan’s Coast Guard, which confirmed the launches, stated the objects appeared to have already fallen.

The launches come days after the US and South Korea wrapped up 11 days of so-called Freedom Defend joint army drills.

North Korea has lengthy condemned joint US-South Korea army drills, calling them rehearsals for an invasion.

Pyongyang earlier this month warned that Seoul and Washington would pay a “pricey worth” for this 12 months’s Freedom Defend drills, which concerned twice as many troops as final 12 months.

About 27,000 US troopers are stationed in South Korea, the place the drills befell.

North Korea’s check on Monday was the most recent in a sequence of weapons demonstrations this 12 months, together with a missile tipped with a manoeuvrable hypersonic warhead on January 14.

Democracy Summit

Shortly after the missile launches, Blinken and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol took to the stage on the opening of the Summit for Democracy, which is that this 12 months being hosted by South Korea.

Each Blinken and Yoon spoke about how know-how could possibly be used to encourage democracy, but additionally to undermine it.

Blinken’s feedback got here after the US Home of Representatives final week handed a invoice that might see the favored social media app TikTok, which is owned by Chinese language developer ByteDance, banned.

The democracy summit, an initiative of US President Joe Biden, has attracted criticism in previous years as a result of its selective invitation checklist, with nations together with Thailand and Turkey reportedly excluded.