Flurry of North Korean missiles for US Vice President's visit

KOREA: North Korea carried out another banned missile test, just hours after a visit by US Vice-President Kamala Harris, South Korea’s military says.

Two short-range ballistic missiles were fired into the sea off the North’s east coast, it said, in the third such breach of UN sanctions this week.

It follows a visit by Harris to the demilitarised zone dividing the Koreas. This has been a record year for missile tests in North Korea and the latest launches are timed to send a message.

They come as the US and South Korea held joint naval drills this week around the Korean peninsula.

Earlier on Thursday, Ms Harris met South Korea’s Leader Yoon Suk-yeol shortly after her arrival in the capital Seoul. Both condemned Pyongyang’s actions.

In a White House statement, the two leaders criticised Pyongyang’s “provocative nuclear rhetoric and ballistic missile launches”, and “reaffirmed [their] alignment… and goal of the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”. This week’s missiles – the first fired on Sunday before the naval drills began, followed by two on the eve of Vice President Harris’s visit and the last two hours after she left – are the first since early June, but North Korea has test-launched more than 30 weapons so far in 2022, more than in any other single year. – BBC