SEOUL (Parliament Politics Magazine) – The South Korean military issued an apology after a missile it fired during an exercise on Tuesday malfunctioned and plummeted to the ground, raising fears among locals that North Korea—which had conducted a missile test earlier in the day—was attempting to attack them.
Hours after the North fired an intermediate-range missile over northern Japan, the US and South Korea conducted a live-fire exercise as a show of force.
Instead, a short-range Hyumoo-2 ballistic missile fell to the ground at an air force facility close to South Korea’s coastal city of Gangneung, causing embarrassment.
The media reported, because of the ensuing fire and the noise and even though the missile did not explode, some Gangneung residents believed the North had launched an attack. No injuries were mentioned.
Hours after internet users released videos of an orange ball of flames emerging from what they claimed was close to an air force base in Gangneung, the South Korean military acknowledged the incident.
The South Korean missile’s “abnormal flight,” is being investigated, the military said. The missile was a crucial component of the military’s preemptive and retaliatory attack methods against the North.
The accident happened as the militaries of the US and South Korea launched a barrage of missiles into the East Sea, famously called the Sea of Japan, in retaliation for North Korea’s first ballistic missile launch over Japan in five years.
As the missile flew high above the northernmost main island of Hokkaido and the prefecture of Aomori, the government of Japan issued an alert advising citizens to seek cover.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that two ATACMS short-range ballistic missiles were launched into the water by the US and South Korean forces “to precisely strike a virtual target.”
It claimed in a statement that the drills demonstrated the capability and readiness to neutralise the cause of the provocation while maintaining a persistent monitoring posture.
Fighter jets from South Korea and the US bombed a target in the Yellow Sea on Tuesday as part of a training exercise.
John Kirby, US national security council spokesperson, told CNN that the drills were intended to ensure that they had the military assets prepared to respond to provocations by the North if that came to that.
“That shouldn’t come to that,” he said, adding that they had made it plain to Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, that they were ready to sit down without demands. They wanted to see the Korean Peninsula de-nuclearised, he stated.
Kim Jong-Un had shown no intention of moving in that direction. He was rather heading in the opposite direction by continuing to conduct these missile launches, which were violations of Security Council resolutions, Kirby added.
The most recent launch by Pyongyang is a part of a record-breaking year for the isolated government, which has lately changed its legal framework to declare itself an “irreversible” nuclear state.
The latest launch by North Korea was denounced by US president Joe Biden and Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida “in the strongest terms.”
Yoon Suk-yeol, president of South Korea, referred to the launch as a “provocation” and promised a “stern response.”
The test on Tuesday was the fifth missile launch in ten days by Pyongyang. In its state media, North Korea rarely offers comments on its nuclear and missile tests.
