US Consults Allies on Robust Response to North Korea Missile Launch

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan had spoken separately on Monday evening with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, Secretary General Akiba Takeo of the National Security Secretariat of Japan and National Security Office Director Kim Sung-han of the ROK, about North Korea’s latest missile launch over Japan.

The national security spokeswoman Adrienne Watson announced that the National Security Advisors consulted on appropriate and robust joint and international responses, adding that Sullivan reinforced the United States’ ironclad commitments to the defense of Japan and South Korea.

The US Indo-Pacific Command also condemned the missile launch in a separate statement, stressing that Washington condemns these actions and reiterating calls for North Korea (DPRK) to refrain from further unlawful and destabilizing acts.

On Tuesday, North Korea fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) over Japan, forcing Tokyo to activate Japan’s missile alert system and order people to take shelter, prompting evacuations and suspended trains in the country.

The firing, which followed a recent series of launches by DPRK, was strongly condemned by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who called the launch a “reckless act.”

Although North Korea has previously launched other potentially longer-range weapons at high angles to avoid neighboring countries, this missile’s estimated 4,500 km flight was the longest by any DPRK missile. Japanese officials believe the nuclear-capable weapon eventually landed in the Pacific Ocean.

The launch of the missile that could reach the US territory of Guam and possibly beyond was North Korea’s most provocative weapons demonstration this year.

Some experts say that DPRK’s aiming at wresting outside concessions by building g a full-fledged nuclear arsenal that viably threatens both the US and its allies.

DPRK last fired a missile over Japan in 2017 – at the height of a period of “fire and fury”-when then-US president Donald Trump traded insults with Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong Un.