North Korea tests missile shortly after US soldier illegally crosses border ‘The aim is to use famine to flee people’

A US soldier who illegally crossed the inner Korean border into North Korea had previously committed a criminal offense in South Korea, according to a media report. As the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported on Wednesday, citing judicial authorities, he had damaged a police patrol car with footsteps in a row against Koreans and their military and was fined for it.

Hours after the alleged arrest of the US soldier on the North Korean side, the regime there fired two ballistic missiles into the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan on Wednesday. However, experts suspect that this was in response to the arrival of a US nuclear submarine in the area.

Pyongyang’s recent missile launches have “probably nothing” to do with the young American soldier crossing the border, British broadcaster BBC quoted Leif-Eric Easley of Seoul’s Ewha University as saying. The North Korean regime has expressed its displeasure with the US Defense Department’s plan to send a nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea for days, the New York Times reports.

Earlier this week, the influential sister of ruler Kim Jong-un, Kim Yo Jong, said that the stationing of a US ballistic missile submarine on the peninsula would damage the already broken lines of communication between the two, according to US television channel CNN. sides. She had previously responded to increased US military cooperation with South Korea by threatening and insulting US President Joe Biden.

North Korea’s self-declared nuclear power had tested a new type of long-range solid-fuel propulsion missile last week, according to the leadership in Pyongyang. UN decrees prohibit the internationally isolated country from testing ballistic missiles of any range. Depending on the design, such missiles can also be equipped with a nuclear warhead.

However, the North Korean regime likely views the recent border crossing by a US soldier as “a threat to the military, intelligence community and health,” Easley said. However, it is more likely that the man acted “impulsively” due to personal issues. According to the US Forces in Korea, the US soldier took part in a tour of the South Korean part of the demilitarized zone and “deliberately” crossed the border into North Korea.

The so-called Demilitarized Zone separates the two Korean states. In recent decades, Americans have crossed the border into North Korea without permission several times. There they were usually sentenced to several years in prison and only released after lengthy negotiations. (yam/sda/dpa)