North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast on Monday, South Korea's military said, heightening tensions on the Korean Peninsula as both sides press ahead with weapons tests.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said one of the missiles flew more than 900 kilometers (559 miles) from the Pyongyang area. It did not specify how many missiles were detected.
Japan's coast guard said the same day that North Korea had launched two unidentified objects, believed to be ballistic missiles, and that they appeared to have fallen into the sea.
South Korea's presidential office said Pyongyang's repeated missile launches violate United Nations Security Council resolutions and called on North Korea to halt the actions immediately.
Escalating tit-for-tat
JCS spokesman Jang Do-young said the latest launch appeared to be a show of force following South Korea's hypersonic missile test.
Last Thursday, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung personally observed the country's first hypersonic missile test — a rare instance of a South Korean president publicly witnessing a missile launch.
Lee's office said the hypersonic weapon, once fully developed, would enhance South Korea's ability to strike key targets by surprise on the "Korean Peninsula battlefield."
Earlier, on October 3, North Korea also tested an intermediate-range hypersonic missile designed to evade South Korean and Japanese defenses.
Last week, Seoul demanded an apology from North Korea after a mine explosion wounded three South Korean soldiers in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas. A joint South Korea-United Nations investigation concluded that the two mines had been planted by North Korean forces about a year earlier. Pyongyang rejected the accusation and in turn accused Seoul of provocation.
Before the border mine blast, Seoul had said it was pursuing "preliminary coordinated efforts" to promote dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington.
In his first speech after taking office in 2025, President Lee pledged to resume dialogue with North Korea.
Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continues to showcase his nuclear weapons program while rejecting U.S. and South Korean offers to restart stalled diplomacy.
Talks between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump broke down abruptly in 2019. Kim's administration still demands that Washington abandon its "hostile" policy toward Pyongyang and drop its demand for North Korean denuclearization from the conditions for talks.
