SEOUL (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th March, 2023) South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said at a meeting of the country's National Security Council (NSC) on Thursday after the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) by North Korea that Pyongyang will pay for provocations, the Yonhap news agency reported.
North Korea on Thursday morning fired an ICBM from the outskirts of Pyongyang eastward, the Japanese Defense Ministry reported earlier. The missile flew for about 70 minutes and is believed to have fallen outside of Japan's exclusive economic zone. It covered a distance of 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) and its maximum flight altitude was 6,000 kilometers (3,728 miles).
Yoon attended a South Korean NSC meeting before departing for Japan for a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, which will discuss, among other things, bilateral cooperation, as well as trilateral interaction between Tokyo, Seoul and Washington, for complete denuclearization of North Korea.
"North Korea will certainly pay for reckless provocations," Yoon told the NSC meeting.
He stressed the need to strengthen security cooperation with the United States and Japan.
According to Yonhap, Yoon also ordered the military to thoroughly conduct ongoing military drills with the US.
The South Korean NSC condemned North Korea's ICBM launch as a violation of UN Security Council resolutions and a provocation that escalates tensions on the Korean Peninsula and threatens regional peace.
South Korea and the United States on Monday started an 11-day Freedom Shield joint exercise, along with separate large-scale field maneuvers called Warrior Shield, amid Seoul's tougher rhetoric against Pyongyang.
