'Serious Provocation': North Korea Fires Missiles For 25th Time This Year

North Korea conducted its 25th missile launch this year as it fired Sunday two short-range ballistic missiles to the waters off the Korean peninsula’s east coast.

CNN reported that South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff “strongly condemned” the launches, calling them a “serious provocation” that harms the peace and safety of the Korean Peninsula and a violation of a UN Security Council resolution.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles launched early Sunday morning with a flight range of around 350 kilometers and an altitude of around 90 kilometers.

According to Japanese defense minister Toshiro Ino, the missiles were fired around 1:47 a.m. and 1:53 a.m. local time on Sunday and fell outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

“This is the seventh time in a short period of time since the end of September that North Korea has escalated its provocations,” Ino told the Japan Times. “This series of North Korean actions threatens the peace and security of our country, the region and the international community and is absolutely unacceptable.”

Just last Tuesday, North Korea fired a missile without warning which flew past Japan, causing the latter’s government to warn its citizens to find shelter.

That missile traveled over the northern part of Japan early in the morning and was believed to have landed in the Pacific Ocean. It was back in 2017 when North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan.

North Korea usually launches and tests missiles into the waters off the coast of the Korean Peninsula, making the launch over Japan that happened on Tuesday considerably provocative.

However, the US Indo-Pacific Command said that the launches “do not pose an immediate threat to US personnel or territory, or to our allies.”