SEOUL, October 03 (AJP) - North Korea fired a ballistic missile into the East Sea on Saturday. The launch came three days after South Korea demanded an apology for a land mine blast that injured three of its soldiers inside the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the missile at around 6:30 a.m. after it was launched from the Wonsan area on the North's east coast. Military authorities were still analyzing its range and specifications. It was North Korea's 15th ballistic missile launch this year and its first in 13 days.
"Our military has strengthened surveillance and vigilance in preparation for additional launches, while South Korea, the United States and Japan are closely sharing information on the North Korean ballistic missile and maintaining full readiness," the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.
In the days before the launch, Pyongyang rebuffed Seoul twice. It denied responsibility for the mine, and it dismissed an offer of talks.
On Sept. 30, Lt. Gen. Kang Hyun-woo, the JCS director of operations, read a statement blaming a North Korean mine for the injuries. He demanded an apology and responsible measures from Pyongyang. He also called on the North to stop at once what it calls its border fortification work.
The blast occurred Sept. 21 in the demilitarized zone (DMZ). The site lay south of the Military Demarcation Line, the de facto border, in a western sector guarded by the army's 25th Infantry Division.
North Korea has been reinforcing fences, building barriers and laying mines along the line since 2024. The work began after leader Kim Jong-un declared in late 2023 that the two Koreas were hostile states. Pyongyang now treats the line as a national border.
Kim's sister Kim Yo-jong answered the same day. She is director of the General Affairs Department of the Workers' Party of Korea. In a statement, she called the South Korean military's account "an obvious self-staged farce" and insisted that North Korean soldiers "have never once crossed the border."
She issued a second statement Friday. On Thursday, in his Armed Forces Day address, President Lee Jae Myung had pledged to keep taking steps to lower military tensions. Kim called that speech a "self-staged clown show." She also brushed off Unification Minister Chung Dong-young's proposal for inter-Korean talks as "a delusion not even worth answering and one-sided grumbling."
North Korea's previous ballistic launch was on Sept. 20. That day it fired two short-range missiles from the Wonsan area, three hours apart. Two days later, it said the launches had tested the Hwasongpho-11Ma-1, an upgraded version of its Hwasong-11Ma hypersonic missile.
The Hwasong-11Ma pairs the KN-23, North Korea's main short-range ballistic missile, with a warhead shaped as a hypersonic glide vehicle, which glides toward its target and can maneuver irregularly along the way. The design combines a ballistic missile's speed with a cruise missile's low flight altitude, which makes it harder for missile defense systems to intercept.
AJP Takeaways
- North Korea fired a ballistic missile from the Wonsan area into the East Sea at around 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, its 15th ballistic launch this year, three days after South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff demanded an apology for a Sept. 21 land mine blast in the DMZ that injured three South Korean soldiers.
- Kim Yo-jong, director of the General Affairs Department of the Workers' Party of Korea, called the South Korean military's account of the mine blast "an obvious self-staged farce" on Sept. 30 and on Friday dismissed Unification Minister Chung Dong-young's proposal for inter-Korean talks as "a delusion not even worth answering and one-sided grumbling."
- North Korea has been reinforcing fences, building barriers and laying mines along the Military Demarcation Line since 2024, after leader Kim Jong-un declared in late 2023 that the two Koreas were hostile states. AJP added this background, which was not part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff announcement or the North Korean statements.
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