North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends a Workers' Party meeting in Pyongyang, Jan. 20, 2022, in this photo from the Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency)
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea fired several cruise missiles Wednesday, according to the South’s military, another weapons demonstration on the Korean Peninsula as divisions between the neighboring countries widen.
The missiles were launched toward the Yellow Sea at 7 a.m., South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a text message to reporters. No additional details were provided.
The South’s military is “closely cooperating” with its American counterparts and the missiles are being analyzed by intelligence agencies from both countries, the message said.
North Korea, which launched 24 ballistic missiles in 2023, kicked off the new year with a ballistic missile launch and artillery fires. The regime fired around 350 artillery shells toward its southern maritime border in a three-day span starting Jan. 5 and launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile toward the Sea of Japan, or East Sea, on Jan. 14.
Pyongyang is not explicitly banned by the U.N. Security Council from firing cruise missiles, unlike ballistic missiles. Cruise missiles are powered by jet engines and fly at lower altitudes than rocket-powered ballistic missiles.
Wednesday’s launches come roughly a week after Kim threatened to amend the North’s constitution to erase references to reunifying with South Korea and scrap a host of inter-Korean peace-building measures.
During a Supreme People’s Assembly in Pyongyang on Jan. 15, Kim described South Korea as the North’s “primary foe” and proposed destroying symbols of reunification, including an inter-Korean railway, communication lines and a monument in Pyongyang, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
Satellite images obtained by Planet Labs suggested North Korea demolished the Monument to the Three Charters for National Reunification, according to a Tuesday report from NK News, a news organization focused on the communist regime.
The 98-foot-tall, arched granite monument symbolized peace, independence and national solidarity, according to the South Korean Ministry of Unification’s website. The project took North Korea two years to build and was completed in 2001.
The monument was last seen in satellite images four days after Kim’s speech; it is unclear when it was removed, NK News reported.
Pyongyang’s policy shift comes about a month after both Koreas abandoned their five-year military deconfliction agreement. Kim and then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed in 2018 to enact a host of peace-building measures, including a ban on armed guards and aircraft flights near the border.
North Korea withdrew from the agreement in November, claiming U.S.-South Korea military exercises compromised its security. South Korea announced it would lift its ban on aircraft flights near the border, citing Pyongyang’s launch of a military reconnaissance satellite the same month.
