South Korea’s Joint Chief of Staff Spokesperson Kim Jun-ra said that Pyongyang’s last missile test is a ‘grave provocation’, speaking at a press conference in Seoul on Thursday.
“North Korea’s successive ballistic missile launches are a grave provocation that heightened tensions in the Korean Peninsula as well as the international community, and as a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions, we strongly condemn and demand an immediate halt,” he said.
According to the spokesperson, the South Korean army detected two short-range ballistic missiles and a long-range ballistic missile, suspected to be an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), as international experts announced.
“The long-range ballistic missile’s flight distance is about 760 km and reached an altitude of 1920 km, approximately at the speed of 15 Mach. The short-range ballistic missile’s flight distance was about 330 km and reached an altitude of 70 km, approximately at the speed of five Mach,” Kim Jun-ra explained.
The JCS spokesperson went on to say that South Korean and US experts were ‘analysing the specifications of the missiles.’
Media reports citing South Korean officials said the Intercontinental ballistic missile failed during its flight, meanwhile, Japanese officials said they lost track of the missile on its flight path.
A day earlier, Seoul claimed North Korea had fired 23 missiles to the east and west of the Peninsula, the highest number ever in a single day.
