The US and South Korea have agreed to increase Seoul\u2019s missile capabilities just days after North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan and threatened further launches, Seoul\u2019s Yonhap news agency reported.<\/p>\n
The reclusive state fired an intermediate-range Hwasong-12 over Japan early on Tuesday, which it said was a mere \u201ccurtain-raiser\u201d for the North\u2019s \u201cresolute countermeasures\u201d against ongoing US-South Korean military drills.<\/p>\n
It came as the US and South Korean forces were nearing the end of the 10-day annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian joint exercises, which the North regards as a rehearsal for invasion.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump later insisted that \u201call options\u201d were on the table in an implied threat of pre-emptive military action, while on Thursday US heavy bombers and stealth jet fighters took part in a joint live fire drill in South Korea intended as a show of force.<\/p>\n
In phone call on Friday, Trump and his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in agreed to enhance Seoul\u2019s deterrence against North Korea by boosting its missile capabilities, Yonhap reported, citing Seoul\u2019s presidential office, Cheong Wa Dae.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe two leaders noted the need to strengthen the Republic of Korea\u2019s defence capabilities to counter provocations and threats from North Korea, and reached an agreement in principle to revise the \u2018missile guideline\u2019 to the extent hoped by the South Korean side,\u201d Yonhap quoted Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Park Soo-hyun as saying.<\/p>\n
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest point in years after a series of missile tests by Pyongyang.<\/p>\n
South Korean President Moon Jae-In has previously urged limits on Seoul\u2019s missiles to be loosened in a conversation with Trump.<\/p>\n
Seoul is currently allowed to possess ballistic missiles with a range of 800 km and payload of 500 kg, but it wants the weight limit raised to 1,000 kg.<\/p>\n
The Pentagon had said it was \u201cactively\u201d considering the revision.<\/p>\n
Calls are also mounting in the South for Seoul to build nuclear weapons of its own to defend itself as nuclear-armed North Korea\u2019s missile stand-off with the US escalates.<\/p>\n
The South, which hosts 28,500 US troops to defend it, is banned from building its own nuclear weapons under a 1974 atomic energy deal it signed with Washington, which instead offers a \u201cnuclear umbrella\u201d against potential attacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US and South Korea have agreed to increase Seoul\u2019s missile capabilities just days after North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan and threatened further launches, Seoul\u2019s Yonhap news agency reported. The reclusive state fired an intermediate-range Hwasong-12 over Japan early on Tuesday, which it said was a mere \u201ccurtain-raiser\u201d for the North\u2019s \u201cresolute […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3507,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3508,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3506\/revisions\/3508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}