South Korea's Military Says North Korea Fired Ballistic Missile Into Eastern Sea

Ballistic missile launch is Pyongyang's first this year and comes after its last in November when it test-fired what it said was most powerful ICBM.

Seoul:North Korea on Monday fired at least one ballistic missile into its eastern seas, South Korea’s military said, extending its heightened weapons testing activities into 2025 weeks before Donald Trump returns as U.S. president. The South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff on Monday didn’t immediately confirm how many missiles were fired or how far they flew.

The launch event came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting Seoul for talks with South Korean allies over the North Korean nuclear threat and other issues.

Blinken’s visit comes amid political turmoil in South Korea following President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived martial law decree and subsequent impeachment by parliament last month, which experts say puts the country at a disadvantage in getting a steady footing with Trump ahead of his return to the White House.

In a year-end political conference, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to implement the “toughest” anti-U.S. policy and criticized the Biden administration’s efforts to strengthen security cooperation with Seoul and Tokyo, which he described as a “nuclear military bloc for aggression.”

North Korean state media did not specify Kim’s policy plans or mention any specific comments about Trump. During his first term, Trump met Kim three times for talks on the North’s nuclear program.

Many experts, however, say a quick resumption of Kim-Trump summitry is unlikely as Trump would first focus on conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. North Korea’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine also poses a challenge to efforts to revive diplomacy, experts say.