North Korea dismisses Biden's tour of Asia with the firing of three missiles, one intercontinental

North Korea has launched three ballistic missiles of different ranges on Wednesday, one of them intercontinental according to the South Korean armed forces, hours after the president of the United States, Joseph Biden, concluded his five-day tour of Asia.

As indicated by the General Staff of the South Korean army, the three projectiles were fired in less than an hour, between 6:00 and 6:42 (23:00 and 23:42 Spanish peninsular time on Tuesday) from the Sunan airport, of dual civil and military use, in the outskirts of Pyongyang.

The first, the largest and suspected of being an intercontinental missile (ICBM, for its acronym in English) reached a height of 550 kilometers and fell 300 kilometers from its launch point in the waters of the East Sea / Sea of ​​​​Japan.

According to preliminary analysis by South Korean forces, the rocket appears to have been able to change its trajectory in mid-flight.

The second rocket apparently failed and fell into the sea after 20 minutes of flight.

The third appears to have been a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) that rose 50 kilometers and traveled a distance of 750 kilometers before falling into the sea.

This is the largest launch since the new South Korean head of state, Yoon Suk-yeol, was sworn in on the 10th. "North Korea's continued provocations will only result in the South Korean-American deterrent make it even faster and more powerful, and they will only further isolate North Korea," the president's office said in a statement.

In response to the launches, the South Korean and US armies immediately launched military exercises that included the launch of surface-to-surface missiles.

The White House had indicated over the weekend that North Korea seemed ready to test an intercontinental missile during Biden's visit to the South, between Friday and Sunday.

Western analysts also consider it likely that Pyongyang is preparing a new nuclear test, the first since 2017 and which would be the seventh in the country's history.

The US president and Yoon then agreed in their talks to expand the dimensions of their joint military exercises and study the deployment of US strategic equipment if necessary.

At the same time, the two heads of state indicated their willingness to send vaccines and immediate medical assistance to North Korea, whose health system is very precarious and which is suffering from a serious wave of covid that has infected at least two million people between a population of 28 million.

So far, Pyongyang has not responded to the offers.

Since the beginning of the year, the Kim Jong Un regime has promised to redouble its nuclear weapons program and has carried out some twenty ballistic missile tests of different ranges, after abandoning the moratorium that had been imposed in 2018 when a process of negotiation for its nuclear disarmament with the then US president, Donald Trump.

Although the two leaders met three times, the talks yielded little result.

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