Fears of world war III has yet again been raised following Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) confirmation that North Korea has fired about 10 unidentified ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan on Saturday, just days after Pyongyang warned of “terrible consequences” over South Korea-US military drills.
A diplomatic thaw with South Korea, Washington’s security ally, was recently crushed by Pyongyang, which called its most recent peace initiatives a “clumsy, deceptive farce.”
Seoul’s military detected “around ten unidentified ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan area in North Korea toward the East Sea at around 1:20 pm (0420 GMT),” the JCS said in a statement.
Japan’s defence ministry also verified the launch, saying on its official X account that “what is possibly a ballistic missile was launched from North Korea”.
The announcement was made just hours after South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok stated that US President Donald Trump believes a summit with Kim Jong Un, the leader of Pyongyang, would be “good.”
For many years, Washington has spearheaded attempts to undermine North Korea’s nuclear program, but diplomatic pressure, summits, and sanctions have not had much of an effect.
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The Trump administration has pushed in recent months to revive high-level talks with Pyongyang, eyeing a possible summit with Kim Jong Un this year, potentially during Trump’s April visit to Beijing.
Seoul’s Kim, who met Trump in Washington, claimed that the US president told him that it would be “good” to see Kim Jong Un. The meeting might take place during Trump’s visit to Beijing, which starts later in March.
Meanwhile, earlier this week, Kim Yo Jong, a powerful confidante of her brother Kim Jong Un, said the joint drills “may cause unimaginably terrible consequences”.
She further stated that the drills were taking place at “a critical time when global security structure is collapsing rapidly, and wars break out in different parts of the world”.
She also added that the situation is caused by “the reckless acts of the outrageous international rogues”.
Pyongyang has since condemned the US-Israeli attack on Iran as an “illegal act of aggression”, claiming it shows the “rogue” nature of the United States.
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