South Korea s military acknowledged the malfunction hours after internet users raised alarm about the blast and posted social media videos showing an orange ball of flames emerging from an area they described as near the air force base. It said it was investigating what caused the abnormal flight of the missile.
The joint exercises will show their ability to deter a North Korean attack on the South, as well as the U.S. and South Korean militaries. During Tuesday's drills, they conducted bombing runs by F-15 strike jets using precision munitions and launched two missiles each that are part of the Army Tactical Missile System.
Seoul s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was to return to waters east of South Korea on Wednesday to demonstrate the allies firm will to counter North North Korea's continued provocations and threats. The carrier was part of drills with Japan and South Korea last week.
The homegrown Hyumoo 2 is the key to South Korea's preemptive and retaliatory strike strategies against the North. Some versions of the missile are similar to Russian-designed Iskander missiles, which inspired a localized variant in North Korea as it expands its arsenal of nuclear-capable short-range weapons designed to evade South Korea's missile defenses.
North Korea's successful launch of a nuclear-capable ballistic missile hours before the drills was the country's most provocative weapons demonstration since 2017 and was its fifth round of weapons tests in 10 days.
One of the largest military facilities maintained by the U.S. in Asia is a missile capable of striking Guam. In 2017, North Korea tested missiles capable of hitting the continental United States.
The lower house of Japan, the more powerful of the two chambers parliament, adopted a resolution on Wednesday condemning North Korea's launch, saying that the flight over Japan posed a grave and imminent threat to the country s security.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry said that Lee Tae-woo, the country's deputy nuclear envoy, met with U.S. counterpart Jung Park in Seoul on Wednesday to discuss the recent North Korean launches and vowed to strengthen three-way cooperation with Tokyo to counter the threat and bring Pyongyang back to the negotiation table.
North Korea has fired nearly 40 ballistic missiles over the past 20 different launch events this year, exploiting Russia's war on Ukraine and the resulting deep divide in the UN Security Council to accelerate its arms development without any further sanctions.
Its aim is to develop a fully fledged nuclear arsenal capable of threatening the U.S. mainland and its allies while gaining recognition as a nuclear state and wresting concessions from those countries.
The United States, Britain, France, Albania, Norway, and Ireland called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council over the latest North Korean launch. The open meeting was scheduled for 3 p.m. Wednesday.
Washington has stalled since the year 2019 over disagreements over the release of crippling U.S. sanctions against the North and the North's nuclear diplomacy.