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| President Yoon Suk-yeol attends a National Security Council meeting on North Korea's latest ballistic missile launches at the presidential office in Seoul, Nov. 3. Yonhap |
The presidential National Security Council strongly condemned North Korea's latest missile launches Thursday as President Yoon Suk-yeol ordered the military to maintain a firm combined defense posture with the United States to protect the people's lives against the North's intensifying provocations.
North Korea fired one presumed intercontinental ballistic missile and two short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea, continuing a barrage of weapons tests that included the launch Wednesday of a missile that landed near South Korean territorial waters for the first time since the 1950-53 Korean War.
"The participants deemed North Korea's ballistic missile launch as a grave violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and serious provocations raising tensions on the Korean Peninsula and in the region, and strongly condemned it," the presidential office said of an NSC meeting presided over by National Security Adviser Kim Sung-han and joined by Yoon.
"In particular, they made clear that South Korea-U.S. combined defense exercises aimed at protecting our people's lives and safety in response to North Korea's nuclear and missile threats will continue unwaveringly," it said.
This week's unprecedented provocations by North Korea come as South Korea and the U.S. have been carrying out joint air drills to bolster deterrence against the North's threats.
North Korea has condemned all allied exercises as rehearsals for an invasion of the regime.
"President Yoon Suk-yeol ordered that as North Korea raises the level of its provocations, that every effort be made toward the South Korea-U.S. combined defense posture to ensure not even the slightest gap in protecting our people's lives and safety," the presidential office said.
"Moreover, he ordered a further strengthening of the South Korea-U.S. extended deterrence enforcement and expansion of security cooperation between South Korea, the U.S. and Japan," it said.
The participants also deplored North Korea's obsession with provocations and waste of resources in disregard of its people's livelihoods and human rights and warned that its continued provocations will further isolate the country and darken the future of the regime. (Yonhap)
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