SEOUL: A South Korean court on Saturday (Oct 22) issued arrest warrants for a former defence minister and a former coast guard chief over their alleged mishandling of the death of a state fishery ministry employee at the hands of North Korean troops two years ago.

The decision by the Seoul Central District Court, which cited risks of them fleeing or destroying evidence, came days after the prosecutors on Tuesday filed for arrest warrants and follows an investigation by the government that showed previously unpublished details about the final moments of the fisheries official Lee Dae-jin.

The latest documents from the parliamentary investigation revealed that Lee was kept in water for nearly six hours as he drifted in and out of consciousness after being found by North Koreans, while the coast guard and navy violated rules during their initial rescue efforts by failing to seek help from other vessels and authorities nearby.

The two face charges that include dereliction of duty, abuse of power, forging official documents, and covering up and distorting facts in the case.

Lee’s death has become a sensitive issue in South Korea, in part because of the fight by his brother to clear his name. The previous administration of President Moon Jae-in had portrayed his death as a failed defection attempt due to his gambling debts, mental health issues and an unhappy life.

Meanwhile, state auditor the Board of Audit and Inspection last week said it had also requested prosecutors to investigate 20 officials from five agencies, including a former national security adviser and a former national intelligence service chief of the previous government, in relation to the case.

 

 

SEOUL: North Korea fired an unidentified ballistic missile into the sea off its east coast, South Korea’s military said on Friday (Oct 14), the latest in a series of launches by the nuclear armed country.

A statement from South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) gave no further details.

The latest launch was announced shortly after the military said South Korea scrambled fighter jets when a group of about 10 North Korean military aircraft flew close to the border dividing the two countries, amid heightened tensions over repeated North Korean missiles tests.

A subsequent statement on North Korea’s official KCNA news agency quoted the North Korean military as saying it took “strong military countermeasures” after South Korean artillery fire.

The South Korean JCS statement said the aircraft incident happened late on Thursday and early Friday Korean time.

The statement said the North Korean aircraft were detected flying about 25km north of the Military Demarcation Line in the central region of the Korea border area and about 12km north of the Northern Limit Line, a de facto inter-Korean border in the Yellow Sea, between 10:30pm Thursday (1330 GMT) and 0:20 am (1530 GMT) local time Friday.

It said the aircraft were also seen near the eastern part of the inter-Korean border.

The JCS said the South Korean air force “conducted an emergency sortie with its superior air force, including the F-35A, and maintained a response posture, while carrying out a proportional response maneuver corresponding to the flight of a North Korean military aircraft”.

The US Indo-Pacific Command said it was aware of the latest missile launch and had assessed that “it does not pose an immediate threat to US personnel or territory, or to our allies”.
 
“We will continue consulting closely with our allies and partners to monitor the DPRK’s destabilising ballistic missile launches,” it said, referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name.
 
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile was launched at about 1.49am on Friday (1449 Thursday GMT) from the Sunan area near North Korea’s capital Pyongyang. It was at least the 41st ballistic missile launch by North Korea this year.

Japan’s coast guard also reported that North Korea had fired what could have been a ballistic missile and that it had already fallen.

The South Korean JCS statement said the aircraft incident happened late on Thursday and early Friday Korean time.

The statement said the North Korean aircraft were detected flying about 25km north of the Military Demarcation Line in the central region of the Korea border area and about 12km north of the Northern Limit Line, a de facto inter-Korean border in the Yellow Sea, between 10.30pm Thursday (1330 GMT) and 12.20am on Friday (1530 GMT Thursday).

The JCS said the aircraft were also seen near the eastern part of the inter-Korean border.

It said the South Korean air force “conducted an emergency sortie with its superior air force, including the F-35A, and maintained a response posture, while carrying out a proportional response maneuver corresponding to the flight of a North Korean military aircraft”.

KCNA quoted a spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) as saying that the South Korean army had conducted about 10 hours of artillery fire near North Korea’s forward defense area on Thursday.

“Taking a serious note of this provocative action by the South Korean military in the frontline area, we took strong military countermeasures,” it said. “The KPA sends a stern warning to the South Korean military inciting military tension in the frontline area with reckless action.”

A South Korean military spokesman said he had no information regarding the artillery fire.

North Korea has called its most recent series of missile tests, which included an intermediate range ballistic missile that flew over Japan last week, a show of force against joint South Korean and US military drills.

South Korea scrambled fighter jets a week ago after North Korean warplanes staged an apparent bombing drill as allied warships held missile defense drills in response to North Korean missile tests.

Washington imposed new sanctions last week targeting a fuel procurement network supporting Pyongyang’s weapons programs.

Decades of US-led sanctions have not stemmed North Korea’s increasingly sophisticated weapons programs, and Kim Jong Un has shown no interest in returning to a failed path of diplomacy he pursued with former US President Donald Trump.

SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the launch of two long-range strategic cruise missiles, state media reported on Thursday (Oct 13), calling it a test to confirm the reliability and operation of nuclear-capable weapons deployed to military units.

The test firing was conducted on Wednesday, and was aimed at “enhancing the combat efficiency and might” of cruise missiles deployed to the Korean People’s Army “for the operation of tactical nukes”, state media Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

Stressing that the test launch was another clear warning to its “enemies”, leader Kim Jong Un said the country “should continue to expand the operational sphere of the nuclear strategic armed forces to resolutely deter any crucial military crisis and war crisis at any time and completely take the initiative in it”, according to KCNA.

On Monday, KCNA said Kim had guided nuclear tactical exercises targeting South Korea over the past two weeks in protest of recent joint naval drills by South Korean and US forces involving an aircraft carrier.

KCNA reported that the two missiles test-fired on Wednesday flew for 10,234 seconds and “clearly hit the target 2,000km away”.

A US State Department spokesperson declined to comment on the launches, and said Washington remained focused on coordinating closely with its allies and partners to address the threats posed by North Korea.

North Korea first tested a “strategic” cruise missile in September 2021, which was seen by analysts at the time as possibly the country’s first such weapon with a nuclear capability.

Wednesday’s test confirms that nuclear role and that it is operational, although it is unclear whether North Korea can build warheads small enough for a cruise missile.

The cruise missiles are among a number of smaller weapons recently developed by North Korea to fly low and maneuver so as to better evade missile defences.

Kim said last year that developing smaller warheads was a top goal, and officials in Seoul have said that if the North resumes nuclear testing for the first time since 2017, developing smaller devices could be among its aims.

North Korea’s cruise missiles usually generate less interest than ballistic missiles because they are not explicitly banned under UN Nations Security Council resolutions.

Cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles that can be armed with either conventional or nuclear warheads are particularly destabilising in the event of conflict as it can be unclear which kind of warhead they are carrying, analysts said.

“North Korea’s cruise missiles, air force, and tactical nuclear devices are probably much less capable than propaganda suggests,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. “But it would be a mistake to dismiss North Korea’s recent weapons testing spree as bluster or saber-rattling.”

US President Joe Biden’s administration rolled out a long-delayed national security strategy on Wednesday with only a lone reference to North Korea, underscoring limited US options to contain its nuclear and missile programs.

Daniel Russel, the top US diplomat for East Asia under former President Barack Obama, said this was striking, “not only because it passes so quickly past a persistent and existential threat, but also because it frames the strategy as ‘seeking sustained diplomacy toward denuclearisation’, when North Korea has so convincingly demonstrated its utter rejection of negotiations”.

A report by the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said on Wednesday that a recent underwater launch of a ballistic missile from a lake probably has more political than military usefulness.

“Rather than an emerging threat, this test was most likely a propaganda and deception operation designed to focus regional and world attention on North Korea’s desired external image of a mighty and powerful nuclear-armed nation,” the report said.

The North’s pursuit of new types of nuclear weapons has renewed calls by some in South Korea to redeploy American tactical nuclear weapons, which were withdrawn in 1991, or for Seoul to leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty and develop its own arsenal.

After backing the idea of asking the United States to redeploy nuclear weapons during the election campaign last year, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has since said that option has been ruled out.

Senior members of this party, however, this week said it was time to reconsider.

South Korean public support for indigenous nuclearisation has been steady, and growing, for more than a decade. This has opened policy space for nuclearisation advocates to make the case for nukes at the elite level.

A persistent Track II discourse among nongovernmental national security analysts will, in turn, pressure a formal, Track I response. Already in 2017, the then-leader of the main opposition party publicly suggested South Korea needed nuclear weapons.

CHINESE AND NORTH KOREAN PRESSURE FORCING MORE RADICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Polling regularly returns support for this option for the reasons one would expect – China and North Korea.

China is a large, powerful state on Seoul’s doorstep. It has increasingly tried to bully South Korea, regarding, for example, missile defence or Chinese travellers during the pandemic.

And North Korea, obviously, is an ongoing, arguably existential threat. It is an opaque nuclear weapons state that routinely threatens South Korea and rejects even the most basic arms control regarding its warheads and missiles.

It has fired a flurry of seven missile launches in just over two weeks, with one that flew over Japan in blatant disregard for Japanese sovereignty.

On Monday (Oct 10), North Korean state media said that the exercises involved ballistic missiles with mock nuclear warheads, and were meant to deliver a strong message of war deterrence.

“Even though the enemy continues to talk about dialogue and negotiations, we do not have anything to talk about nor do we feel the need to do so,” KCNA quoted North Korean President Kim Jong Un as saying.

SEOUL: South Korea says North Korea has fired a ballistic missile toward its eastern waters, the latest in a barrage of weapons tests in recent days.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff says the launch was made early on Sunday (Oct 9) but gave no further details like how far the weapon flew.

The Japanese government also says North Korea has fired a possible ballistic missile.

The launch, the North’s sixth round of weapons tests in two weeks, came hours after the United States and South Korea wrapped a new round of naval drills off the Korean Peninsula’s east coast. The drills involved an US aircraft carrier.

North Korea’s military warned Saturday that the US redeployment of the aircraft carrier near the Korean Peninsula is causing a “considerably huge negative splash” in regional security.

SEOUL: North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the sea on Sunday (Oct 9), the South’s military said, the latest in a blitz of launches amid tensions over US-led military exercises in the region, Yonhap reported.

The South Korean military’s joint chiefs of staff announced the launches from the southeast of the country — the seventh and eighth in two weeks – without giving further details.

“While strengthening our monitoring and vigilance, our military is maintaining a full readiness posture in close cooperation with the United States,” the joint chiefs of staff said, Yonhap reported.

North Korea on Saturday had defended its recent flurry of missile tests as a legitimate counter to US military threats, following days of joint military exercises between the South, Japan and the United States.

The Japanese prime minister’s office also confirmed at least one of Sunday’s launches on Twitter.

“North Korea has launched a suspected ballistic missile. More updates to follow,” the office said.

The missiles, fired toward the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan, seem to have fallen outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, the Japanese government said, according to Kyodo news agency. The coast guard said it had so far not received any reports of damage to Japanese ships, national broadcaster NHK reported.

Sunday’s launches were the latest in a flurry that included an intermediate-range ballistic missile fired Tuesday over Japan, prompting an alert for people in affected areas underneath to take cover.

And on Thursday, North Korea fired two ballistic missiles, the same day Seoul, Tokyo and Washington carried out fresh exercises involving a US navy destroyer from the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier’s strike group.

The United States redeployed the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to waters east of South Korea as part of a broad-ranging military response to Pyongyang’s Tuesday test, which also included joint bombing and missile drills.

The carrier’s redeployment prompted an angry response from the North, with the foreign ministry saying it posed “a serious threat to the stability of the situation on the Korean peninsula”.

Exercises between South Korea and the United States concluded Saturday, according to Yonhap.

Seoul’s military said it had scrambled 30 fighter jets Thursday after 12 North Korean warplanes staged a rare “formation flight north of the inter-Korean air boundary [and] conducted air-to-surface firing drills.”

SEOUL: North Korea said on Saturday (Oct 8) that its missile tests are for self-defence against direct US military threats and they have not harmed the safety of neighbouring countries and regions.

North Korea carried out six missile launches in 12 days as of this week, including launching an intermediate-range missile over Japan on Tuesday.

“Our missile tests are a normal, planned self-defence measure to protect our country’s security and regional peace from direct US military threats,” said state media KCNA, citing an aviation administration spokesperson.

The missile tests “did not pose any threat or harm to the safety of civil aviation as well as the safety of neighbouring countries and regions, by a full consideration of civil aviation safety in advance”.

The message was in response to the International Civil Aviation Organization Council condemning North Korea’s missile launches for posing a serious safety risk to international civil aviation, KCNA said.

North Korea’s defence ministry was “taking a stern look at the development of the current situation, which is very worrisome”, regarding US-South Korean drills involving the nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, KCNA said in a separate statement.

The United States and South Korea held joint maritime exercises on Friday, a day after Seoul scrambled fighter jets in reaction to an apparent North Korean bombing drill.

The United States also announced new sanctions on Friday in response to North Korea’s latest missile launches.

SEOUL: South Korea and the United States began joint maritime exercises with a US aircraft carrier on Friday (Oct 7), South Korea’s military said, a day after it scrambled fighter jets in reaction to an apparent North Korean bombing drill.

The maritime drills will take place in waters off South Korea’s east coast on Oct 7-8, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The drills come after North Korea launched a pair of ballistic missiles into the sea on Thursday, and later flew warplanes near the border with the South.

“We will continue to strengthen our operational capabilities and readiness to respond to any provocations by North Korea through joint drills with … the USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

The US strike group already participated in trilateral missile defence exercises with warships from Japan and South Korea this week, prompted by a test on Tuesday in which North Korea launched a ballistic missile that overflew part of Japan.

Senior defence officials from Japan, South Korea and the United States discussed the latest developments in a call on Friday, condemning the North Korean launches and agreeing that recent trilateral maritime drills have improved their ability to respond to North Korea, South Korea’s ministry of defence said in a statement.

A State Department spokesperson said the United States condemned Thursday’s launch as a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions and a threat to regional neighbours and the international community.

The spokesperson, however, added that Washington was committed to a diplomatic approach and called on the North to engage in dialogue.

On Wednesday, the United States accused China and Russia of enabling North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by blocking attempts to strengthen UN Security Council sanctions on Pyongyang for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who is set to speak to Kishida by telephone on Thursday, told reporters his country would ensure its security through its alliance with the United States and cooperation with Japan.

Tokyo lodged a “vehement protest” with North Korea over Thursday’s launches through delegations in Beijing, Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said.

“North Korea has relentlessly and unilaterally escalated its provocation especially since the beginning of this year,” Hamada told reporters.

Thursday’s first missile probably flew to an altitude of about 100km and a range of 350km, while the second had an estimated altitude of 50km and covered 800km, probably taking an irregular trajectory, he said.

Many of North Korea’s most recent short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) are designed to fly on a lower, depressed trajectory and potentially manoeuver, complicating efforts to detect and intercept them.

South Korea’s JCS said the missiles were launched from near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.

The United States and its allies have stepped up displays of military force in the region, but there appears little prospect of further international sanctions by the UN Security Council, which has already passed resolutions banning the North’s missile and nuclear development.

China’s deputy UN ambassador, Geng Shuang, said the Security Council needed to play a constructive role “instead of relying solely on strong rhetoric or pressure”.

In May, China and Russia vetoed a US-led push for more UN sanctions on North Korea over its renewed ballistic missile launches, publicly splitting the Security Council for the first time since it began punishing Pyongyang with sanctions in 2006.