Washington: The US military condemned North Korea’s ballistic missile launches on Monday, calling on it to refrain from further “unlawful” and “destabilising” acts and reaffirming America’s “ironclad” security commitment to South Korea and Japan.
The US Indo-Pacific Command issued the statement after the North fired multiple ballistic missiles toward the Yellow Sea in its first known missile launch since US President Donald Trump took office in January.
“The United States condemns these actions and calls on the DPRK to refrain from further unlawful and destabilising acts,” the command said, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“While we have assessed that this event does not pose an immediate threat to US personnel, or territory, or to our allies, we continue to monitor the situation. The US commitments to the defence of the ROK and Japan remain ironclad,” it added. ROK is short for South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea, Yonhap news agency reported.
The command noted that the US is consulting closely over the launches with South Korea and Japan as well as other regional allies and partners.
The missile launches came as South Korea and the US kicked off their annual Freedom Shield exercise on Monday for an 11-day run.
North Korea has long denounced the allies’ joint exercises as a rehearsal for an invasion against it and has a track record of staging weapons tests in response.
It released back-to-back statements denouncing the latest joint drills, threatening that Seoul and Washington will pay a “horrible” price for their “dangerous provocative act.”
Earlier Monday, the North’s Foreign Ministry denounced the allies’ exercise as a “dangerous provocative act,” saying it would result in an “aggravated security crisis.”
South Korea and the US have rejected accusations of invasion rehearsals, describing their joint drills as defensive in nature.
North Korea last fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea on January 14.
Last week, Pyongyang slammed the United States for “political and military provocations” over the visit of a US Navy aircraft carrier to the South Korean port of Busan.
Relations between Pyongyang and Seoul have been at one of their lowest points in years, with the North launching a flurry of ballistic missiles last year in violation of UN sanctions.
(IANS)
