NUCLEAR-ARMED NORTH Korea has launched four ballistic missiles in another challenge to President Donald Trump, with three landing provocatively close to America’s ally Japan.

Seoul and Washington began annual joint military exercises last week that always infuriate Pyongyang, with the North’s military warning of “merciless nuclear counter-action”.

Under leader Kim Jong-Un, Pyongyang has ambitions to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the US mainland – which Trump has vowed will not happen.

Seoul said four missiles were fired from Tongchang County, North Pyongan province into the East Sea – its name for the Sea of Japan – and that South Korea and the US were “closely analysing” tracking data for further details.

The missiles travelled around 1,000 kilometres and reached an altitude of 260 kilometres, said a spokesman for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, adding they were unlikely to be ICBMs.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said three of the North Korean missiles came down in Tokyo’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) – waters extending 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres) from its coast.

“This clearly shows North Korea has entered a new stage of threat,” Abe told parliament.

The North’s repeated launches “clearly violate UN Security Council resolutions”, he said. “We can never tolerate this.”

Tokyo’s chief government spokesman Yoshihide Suga added that Japan was considering calling for an emergency Security Council meeting.

Pyongyang carried out two atomic tests last year and a series of missile launches, but this was only the second time its devices had entered Japan’s EEZ.

In Washington, the State Department strongly condemned the launches, saying the US was ready to “use the full range of capabilities at our disposal against this growing threat”.

“We remain prepared — and will continue to take steps to increase our readiness — to defend ourselves and our allies from attack,” acting spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement.

After an emergency meeting of South Korea’s National Security Council, acting president Hwang Kyo-Ahn called the North’s nuclear and missile provocations “immediate and real threats” to his country.

“Considering the North Korean leadership’s brutality and recklessness shown through the murder of Kim Jong-Nam, the results of the North having a nuclear weapon in its hands will be gruesome beyond imagination,” he said.

Killing 

Seoul has blamed Pyongyang for the killing of the half-brother of the North’s leader by two women using VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur’s international airport last month.

Hwang called for “swift deployment” of a US missile defence system, THAAD, a proposal which has infuriated neighbouring China, the North’s key diplomatic protector and main provider of trade and aid.

The launch came ahead of a trip to Japan, China and South Korea by new US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson this month, pointed out Dongguk University professor Kim Yong-Hyun.

Pyongyang was “trying to send a message early on in Trump’s term that North Korea will not be dragged around by his administration”, he said.

Pyongyang is barred under UN resolutions from any use of ballistic missile technology.

Last month, China announced a suspension of all coal imports from the North until the end of the year, depriving Pyongyang of a crucial source of foreign currency.

But six sets of UN sanctions since Pyongyang’s first nuclear test in 2006 have failed to halt its drive for what it insists are defensive weapons.

Trump has described the North as a “big, big problem” and vowed to deal with the issue “very strongly”.

Pyongyang fired a ballistic missile last month — said by the North to use solid fuel and to be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead  – which Seoul said was aimed at testing the response from the new administration.

Kim Dong-Yup, an analyst at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, said the latest launches were unlikely to be testing a newly developed device.

“If they were testing a new missile, they wouldn’t fire four of them at once,” Kim said. “It is highly likely that they fired an existing missile during their winter training, as a countermeasure to the South Korea-US drills and for improvement purposes.”

Seoul and Washington launched the annual Foal Eagle exercises last week, with the North’s military warning a day later of “merciless nuclear counter-action” against enemy forces.

North Korea has regularly carried out actions in protest against the drills, last year firing seven ballistic missiles during them.

Yang Moo-Jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, warned more provocations could be expected from Pyongyang before the exercises end in April.

“Since this year’s joint drills will be the ‘largest-ever’, North Korea could carry out the ‘largest-ever’ protest against it, including an ICBM launch or a nuclear test,” he said.

Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Charlie Flanagan TD, expressed condemnation of the launch.

He said:

The launch of ballistic missiles today by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is an unacceptable act, which further increases tensions in the region and threatens its peace and stability. It is another flagrant violation of North Korea’s obligations under international law, and I urge North Korea to refrain from any further provocative actions. I call on North Korea to re-engage in credible and meaningful dialogue with the international community, in particular within the framework of the Six-Party Talks.

© – AFP, 2017 - Additional reporting Aoife Barry

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