North Korea fired at least 23 missiles off its eastern and western coasts on Wednesday morning, according to the South Korean military, which responded shortly afterward by firing missiles over a maritime border.
The escalation in animosities between the rivals saw South Korea issue an air raid alert for an eastern island, with residents there evacuated to underground shelters.
After Pyongyang fired the missiles in its direction on Wednesday morning, South Korea quickly responded by performing its own missile tests.
Seoul said it conducted the air-to-surface missile tests to show its determination to get tough on North Korean provocations. South Korea’s military said its fighter jets fired three precision-guided missiles to sites near the rivals’ eastern sea border.
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In an emergency meeting with top security officials, South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol ordered officials to take swift unspecified steps to get North Korea to face consequences for its provocation.
He said he would consider the North Korean missile’s landing near the border “a virtual violation of [our] territorial waters”.
Japanese defence minister Yasukazu Hamada said at least two of the North’s missiles showed a possible “irregular” trajectory. This suggests the missiles are the North’s highly manoeuvrable, nuclear-capable KN-23 missile, which was modelled on Russia’s Iskander missile.
Earlier on Wednesday, the South’s joint chiefs of staff said North Korea fired the missiles from its eastern coastal area of Wonsan.
According to a statement, one of the missiles landed in the international waters 16 miles south of the Koreas’ eastern sea border and 104 miles northwest of South Korea’s Ulleung island.
Animosities on the Korean Peninsula have been running high in recent months, with North Korea testing a string of nuclear-capable missiles and adopting a law authorising the pre-emptive use of its nuclear weapons in a broad range of situations.
Some experts still doubt North Korea could use nuclear weapons first in the face of US and South Korean forces.
North Korea has argued its recent weapons tests were meant to issue a warning to Washington and Seoul over their series of joint military drills that it views as an invasion rehearsal, including this week’s exercises involving about 240 warplanes.
In a statement released early on Wednesday, Pak Jong Chon, a secretary of the ruling Workers’ Party who is considered a close confidant of leader Kim Jong-un, called the so-called Vigilant Storm air force drills “aggressive and provocative”.
Mr Pak also accused the Pentagon of formulating a North Korean regime collapse as a major policy objective in an apparent reference to the Pentagon’s recently released National Defence Strategy report.
The report stated any nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies and partners “will result in the end of that regime”.
South Korea’s military has warned North Korea that using its nuclear weapons would put it on a “path of self-destruction”. — AP