President Donald Trump said all options to respond to North Korea were on the table after Pyongyang fired a ballistic missile over Japan earlier on Tuesday.
“The world has received North Korea’s latest message loud and clear: this regime has signaled its contempt for its neighbors, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior,” Trump said in the statement released by the White House.
“Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime’s isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table,” Trump said.
North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan’s northern Hokkaido island into the sea early on Tuesday, prompting warnings to residents to take cover and drawing a sharp reaction from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
“North Korea’s reckless action is an unprecedented, serious and a grave threat to our nation,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters.
Abe said he spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday and they agreed to increase pressure on North Korea. Trump also said the United States was “100 percent with Japan”, Abe told reporters.
South Korea’s military said the missile was launched from near the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, just before 6 a.m. and flew 1,680 miles, reaching an altitude of about 340 miles.
Four South Korean fighter jets bombed a military firing range on Tuesday after President Moon Jae-in asked the military to demonstrate capabilities to counter North Korea.
South Korea and the United States had discussed deploying additional “strategic assets” on the Korean peninsula, the presidential Blue House said in a statement, without giving more details.
South Korea’s Defence Ministry on Tuesday (August 29) unveiled a video of its new ballistic missile tests, hours after North Korea fired a ballistic missile that flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific waters off the northern region of Hokkaido.
In the footage, filmed last Thursday (August 24), three missiles with ranges from 500 km to 800 km were seen being launched and hitting targets on the ground and at sea.
The ballistic missiles, developed by South Korea’s Agency for Defence Development (ADD), showcase the strategic military strength of the country’s Kill Chain pre-emptive strike system and capability of striking North Korea’s missile bases or any other places in the North, the agency said.
Reuters
