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Missiles after drill cut
North Korea launched about 10 short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea, South Korea’s military said, after North Korea shrugged off a US decision to scale back military drills with South Korea in an apparent bid to resume diplomacy.
“North Korea has launched about 10 short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea”
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the launches happened from North Korea’s capital region about 5pm on Thursday, and the military said the missiles flew about 300km each toward North Korea’s eastern waters.
South Korea’s presidential national security council held an emergency meeting to discuss the launches, and after the meeting it issued a statement urging North Korea to halt ballistic missile launches banned by UN Security Council resolutions.
Japan’s Defense Ministry also said earlier it detected a suspected missile launch, while on Wednesday South Korea and the United States said they would scale back their 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises.
Kim Yo-jong dismissed Trump’s overture, saying, “The provocative, aggressive nature of the drills won’t change even though their duration and size were reduced.”
Seoul, Trump, and Pyongyang
South Korea condemned the launches as a grave violation, with Seoul saying, “The ballistic missile launch is a grave act that violates UN Security Council resolutions,” and calling on North Korea to immediately halt further missile launches.
The launches came as South Korea and the US held a shorter edition of Ulchi Freedom Shield, following an order from US President Donald Trump to scale them back so they would end Friday.
Trump said the exercises were an insult to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and that he would meet with Kim later this year, while Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media, “We think it's not worth making comments on that and we have no interest in it at all.”
South Korea’s presidential office convened an emergency security meeting with defence ministry and military officials after the missiles were fired from the Pyongyang area toward the sea east of the Korean Peninsula.
In parallel, the Japanese prime minister’s office and Japan’s Defence Ministry reported suspected launches and said the munition fell outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, as South Korea tracked the missiles because they could be potentially deployed near its border with the South.
What’s at stake next
The missile activity unfolded as Ulchi Freedom Shield was expected to end early on Friday after Trump ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the annual exercise, leaving only half of the scheduled programme complete.
“Ulchi Freedom Shield, which involves 18,000 South Korean troops”
BBC reported that South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun tried to paint the decision as mutual agreement but admitted officials did not know of Trump’s intent to scale down the exercise in advance, and it quoted Jo Bee-yun saying the move “caught his allies by surprise.”
The BBC also framed a larger concern for South Korea as fear that Trump may go further and draw down the 27,000 US troops stationed in South Korea or abandon the longstanding policy of denuclearising the North without consulting its ally.
In response to the shift, South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung praised Trump in a post on X, writing, “I believe [your social media post] was a bold decision that is the result of your deep consideration to achieve peace,” and pledged to increase defence spending.
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reported that Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow “can only welcome” the US decision to cut back its participation in military exercises with South Korea, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged South Korea not to take sides between Beijing and Washington.