(Bloomberg) — North Korea fired a suspected short-range ballistic missile after the influential sister of the state’s chief threatened the US with extreme penalties if it goes forward with joint navy drills with South Korea.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Employees stated in a textual content message to reporters the missile was fired at round 6:20 p.m. Thursday from the western port metropolis of Nampho towards the Yellow Sea. The launch provides to a barrage of rockets Pyongyang has shot off in current weeks, together with an intercontinental ballistic missile designed to ship a nuclear warhead to the US mainland.

Additional particulars on the launch weren’t instantly accessible. The missile went on a uncommon path towards waters between the Korean Peninsula and China. Virtually all of North Korea’s missiles are fired towards waters off its east coast.

Kim Yo Jong, the youthful sister of chief Kim Jong Un stated North Korea is monitoring the “stressed navy strikes by the US forces” and its South Korean “puppet navy,” including that Pyongyang is “on standby to take applicable, fast and overwhelming motion at any time based on our judgment,” the official Korean Central Information Company stated Tuesday.

The US and South Korea are getting ready to carry their Freedom Defend workout routines from March 13-23, drills designed to bolster their defenses towards North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats. The drills are anticipated to be a few of the largest the 2 have held in years. 

South Korea’s spy company on Tuesday briefed lawmakers in parliament on data that North Korea might test-launch its new solid-fueled ICBMs by subsequent month.

Kim Yo Jong had beforehand warned Pyongyang would flip the Pacific right into a “firing vary” if the US continued drills. She additionally hinted the state may begin testing whether or not its warhead designs can face up to the warmth of reentering the environment.

The final time North Korea launched a missile into the Pacific was October 2022, when it fired a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan, flying about 4,600 kilometers (2,860 miles), and marking the longest distance traveled by one in all its missiles so far. 

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who took workplace in Could, introduced again joint navy workout routines with the US. The drills had been scaled down or halted beneath former President Donald Trump, who hoped the transfer would facilitate his nuclear negotiations with North Korean chief Kim Jong Un.

–With help from and .