Kim Jong Un's sister warns of Pacific 'firing range'
STORY: North Korea launched more missiles off its east coast Monday as leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, warned the Pacific could turn into a, quote, “firing range.”
She said that in warning to U.S. forces, saying they should halt military drills after a joint American exercise with South Korea and one with Japan just the day before.
North Korean state media confirmed the launches and called its launcher a ‘means of a tactical nuclear weapon.’
"The unit set virtual targets 395 km and 337 km away from the launching points respectively and fired two shells of 600 mm multiple rocket launchers towards the East Sea."
That’s about 250 to 200 miles off the coast- falling into the waters between Japan and the Korean peninsula.
They were short range weapons as opposed to long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles, one of which was fired by the North on Saturday.
That launch had in turn sparked the U.S. exercises.
The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said the latest launch did not pose an immediate threat but highlights the "destabilizing impact" of North Korea's unlawful weapons programs which are banned under UN Security Council resolutions.
The U.S. and the South are set to hold nuclear tabletop simulations this week as well as the annual springtime Freedom Shield training this March.
On Friday, the North threatened a quote, ‘unprecedentedly persistent, strong’ response to the yearly exercises.
The North's foreign ministry accused the United States of stoking tension and of using the U.N. Security Council as "a tool for illegal hostile policy.”
