niyati goyal :
The South Korean military said Wednesday North Korea launched the highest number of short-range missiles in a day as Seoul retaliated to Pyongyang’s latest barrage of weapons tests, further escalating tensions in the region. North Korea fired as many as 23 missiles of different types to the east and west of the Korean Peninsula, including a surface-to-air missile into the waters off the east and west coasts of the Korean Peninsula, according to the South Korean Defense Ministry. One of the missiles launched by Pyongyang was a short-range ballistic missile that landed close to South Korean territorial waters for the first time since the division of Korea, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.
Japan’s Defense Ministry said North Korea conducted another launch later on Wednesday, including at least one more ballistic missile toward the east that has fallen into the sea outside of Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The ballistic missile flew a short distance at a maximum altitude of less than 50 km, Toshiro Ino, the deputy minister of defense, told reporters on Wednesday evening local time. “North Korea has rapidly escalated its provocations, launching more than a dozen missiles today alone and reportedly firing more than 100 artillery shells into the Japan sea since announcing an extremely provocative statement earlier in the day” Ino said. No damage to aircraft or vessels has been confirmed as of now. When asked whether North Korea had in the past launched this many missiles throughout a day, Ino told reporters that in 2006 and 2009 the North had fired several missiles throughout the day from 3 a.m. to 5 p.m. local time, and 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. local time, respectively, without mentioning an exact number of missiles. A South Korean defense official said earlier the missiles landed to the west of the peninsula in the Yellow Sea, known as the West Sea in Korea, and to the east in the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea.
JCS said the South Korean Air Force targeted international waters north of the NLL at an equal distance to that which the North Korean missile had earlier landed south of the line. “Our military’s precise strike showed our will to firmly respond to any North Korean provocations including short-range ballistic missile, and our capability and readiness to precisely target the enemy,” JCS said. On Wednesday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that North Korea is launching missiles at an “unprecedentedly high frequency.” Kishida also called for a National Security Council meeting to be held as soon as possible due to the rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula. “North Korea’s unprecedented launch of multiple ballistic missiles is recklessly threatening the security of the Republic of Korea,” Australian Foreign Affairs Minister, Penny Wong, tweeted on Wednesday. “Pyongyang must cease this action,” she added. Moscow urged North and South Korea to avoid steps that “could provoke a further increase in tension,” as it contends with fractured global relations amid Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.