South Korea: North Korea tests short-range ballistic missiles

According to the South Korean General Staff, the missiles were fired from North Korea's east coast near Wonsan and traveled around 250 kilometers. North Korea last fired ballistic missiles on October 12th. North Korea is prohibited by UN resolutions from launching ballistic missiles of any range. Depending on the design, such projectiles could also be equipped with a nuclear warhead.

South Korea wants talks again

Just a week ago, South Korea once again suggested starting talks with its neighboring country. Among other things, it should be about the “exact course” of the common border. Three South Korean soldiers were recently injured in an explosion in the border area. South Korea assumes that North Korean landmines were responsible and accuses the North of violating the ceasefire. North Korea denies the allegations.

However, Pyongjan has been pushing ahead massively with the expansion of its border fortifications for years. The South Korean military estimates that Pyongyang has placed around 960,000 landmines along the border since 2024. According to this, there are said to be a total of around two million landmines in the so-called Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), including mines from the South Korean military. South Korea and North Korea are officially at war. The Korean War ended in 1953 only with an armistice and not with an official peace treaty. Since then, the two states have been separated by an approximately four kilometer wide border strip, the DMZ, in the middle of which runs a military demarcation line.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) wants to visit the DMZ on Friday as part of his trip to Asia - like hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. He arrived at an air force base near Seoul on Thursday morning German time.

After a meeting with Merz, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung spoke out in favor of arms cooperation between the two countries. Merz also emphasized the willingness to cooperate and said that security in Northeast Asia is linked to that in Europe. "Korea's security touches Europe's security, and Europe's security also touches Korea's security," he said. North Korean soldiers fought alongside Russia in the Donbass against Ukraine, and in return Moscow supplied weapons to North Korea.