The United States and South Korea held a joint missile drill after North Korea claimed to have conducted its first successful test of a long-range missile.
“Together with the Republic of Korea, we conducted a combined exercise to show our precision fire capability,” Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said in a statement released Tuesday night.
US Army and South Korean military personnel conducted the exercise to counteract North Korea’s “destabilizing and unlawful actions,” a statement from the US Army said. The exercise used the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, and the Republic of Korea Hyunmoo Missile II, which fired missiles into territorial waters of South Korea along the East Coast, according to the US Army statement.
North Korea claims to have developed a new nuclear capable intercontinental ballistic missile with a stable re-entry system, state news agency KCNA said Wednesday in a report after the most recent missile test.
The US-South Korea drill comes after North Korea claimed to have tested a missile that it says can “reach anywhere in the world.” The Tuesday morning missile test reached a height of 2,802 kilometers (1,741 miles), according to state broadcaster Korea Central Television, which would be the highest altitude a North Korean missile had ever reached.
The country claimed it was an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, which would put the United States on notice that Pyongyang could potentially hit the US mainland.
US military analysts believe it probably was a two-stage ICBM, said a US official with knowledge of the Americans’ analysis.
On Tuesday, Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, told Chinese Ambassador Liu Jieyi, president of the UN Security Council, that she wants an emergency session on North Korea, according to a tweet from Haley spokesman Jonathan Wachtel.
The emergency session will convene Wednesday afternoon, Wachtel wrote.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres strongly condemned the missile test.
“This action is yet another brazen violation of Security Council resolutions and constitutes a dangerous escalation of the situation,” Guterres said through his spokesman Stephane Dujarric. “The DPRK leadership must cease further provocative actions and comply fully with its international obligations.”
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also issued a statement harshly criticizing the North Korea missile test.
“Testing an ICBM represents a new escalation of the threat to the United States, our allies and partners, the region, and the world,” Tillerson’s statement said.
