U.S. condemns North Korea’s latest missile launch

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 Ms 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”.
The vice-president also “underscored that the United States is committed to defending [South Korea]… and welcomed [their] close co-operation”.
With denuclearisation talks between the North and the US long stalled, these launches are part of a wider pattern of escalation, with Pyongyang continuing to build and refine its weapons, while Washington strengthens its defences.
This week’s missiles – the first fired on Sunday before the naval drills began, followed by two on the eve of Ms 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.
Experts believe the launches are in retaliation to the joint naval drills as Washington and Seoul bolster their defence of South Korea – the four-day joint drills are the first involving a US aircraft carrier to be held since 2017.