U.S. President Donald Trump said that North Korea had signaled its “contempt for its neighbors” and that “all options are on the table” in terms of a U.S. response.
In a terse, written statement yesterday, Trump said that with the missile launch North Korea has “signaled its contempt for its neighbors, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior.”
“Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime’s isolation in the region and among all nations of the world,” Trump said. “All options are on the table.”
Japanese officials made their usual strongly worded condemnations of the launch.
“We will do our utmost to protect people’s lives,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said. “This reckless act of launching a missile that flies over our country is an unprecedented, serious and important threat.”
Tokyo said there was no reported damage from the missile, which Japan’s NHK TV said separated into three parts. Residents on Hokkaido were warned of a North Korean missile launch by an alert on their cellphones, with loud alarms and an email that told people to stay indoors. Speakers broadcast an alert saying “missile is passing, missile is passing.”
A U.S. congressman visiting Seoul said Washington is now pressuring North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions by shutting down the impoverished country’s access to hard currency, the lifeblood of its expensive weapons program.
The goal is to offer international banks that do business with North Korea a choice between bankruptcy and freezing North Korean accounts, U.S. Rep. Ed Royce, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an interview after meeting with South Korean leaders.
Yesterday’s launch comes days after North Korea fired what was assessed as three short-range ballistic missiles into the sea, and a month after its second test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, which analysts say could reach deep into the U.S. mainland when perfected.
In an unusual move, the military in Seoul released videos of three South Korean missile tests conducted last week. They showed two types of new missiles with ranges of 800 kilometers and 500 kilometers being fired from truck-mounted launchers.
South Korea’s Agency for Defense Development said the launches represented the last flight test for the longer-range missile before it is operationally deployed. Such missiles, which would be the latest additions to South Korea’s Hyumoo family of missiles, are considered key components of the so-called “kill chain” pre-emptive strike capability that South Korea is pursuing to counter North Korea’s nuclear and missile threat.
South Korea also said its air force conducted a live-fire drill involving four F-15 fighter jets dropping eight MK-84 bombs that accurately hit targets at a military field near the country’s eastern coast. Yoon Young-chan, chief press secretary of South Korean President Moon Jae-in, said the exercise was conducted after Moon directed the military to “display a strong capability to punish” North Korea if need be.
The North’s launch over Japan shouldn’t be a total surprise. Earlier this month, when threatening to lob four Hwasong-12s into the waters near Guam, North Korea specifically said they would fly over Japanese territory. North Korea in June also angrily reacted to the launch of a Japanese satellite it said was aimed at spying on the North and said Tokyo was no longer entitled to fault North Korea “no matter what it launches or whether that crosses the sky above Japan.”
North Korea typically reacts with anger to U.S.-South Korean military drills, which are happening now, often testing weapons and threatening Seoul and Washington in its state-controlled media. But animosity is higher than usual following threats traded between Trump and the North. AP
