North Korea conducts rocket launch as US carrier docks in Bosan: Seoul

South Korea says the North conducted a rocket launch on Tuesday, on the same day a US carrier strike group docked in the South's largest port.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff JCS said the military “detected at 10:43 pm (1343 GMT) one alleged military surveillance satellite.”

It said a North Korean rocket flew above international waters off the Korean Peninsula’s west coast and then over the Japanese island of Okinawa toward the Pacific Ocean.

Tokyo briefly issued a J-Alert missile warning for the southern region of Okinawa, urging residents to take shelter inside buildings or underground.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's office posted a message on X: "North Korea has launched a suspected ballistic missile.”

State minister of defense Hiroyuki Miyazawa, said Japan was "analyzing whether it is a failure or a success. We are unable to say anything with certainty."

South Korea claimed that the launch was Pyongyang’s third attempt this year to put a military reconnaissance satellite into orbit.

The office of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who is in London for a state visit, said Pyongyang appears "pretty confident that it'll be a success, though we have to wait and see whether that'll be the case.”

Pyongyang has yet to comment on the report.

North Korea’s reported launch comes as the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier arrived at  South Korea's port city of Bosan as part of an agreement between Washington and Seoul to promote the “regular visibility” of US military assets in the country, the Ministry of Defense said in a news release Tuesday.

It said the deployment signals a “combined defense posture” against North Korea.

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Citing a Japanese Coast Guard spokesman, Stars and Stripes, said the military was notified by Pyongyang of a scheduled launch over the Yellow Sea, East China Sea and east of Luzon, Philippines, between Wednesday and Dec. 1.

The US carrier group is the third Navy carrier to visit the peninsula so far this year. It is capable of carrying roughly 5,000 sailors and 70 aircraft, according to the Navy.

The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan also visited Busan in October to drill with the South Korean and Japanese navies. 

North Korea warned back then that the US is increasing provocations of a “nuclear war” by deploying nuclear-capable bombers to the region. It said that US nuclear assets stationed in the Korean peninsula will become Pyongyang’s “first targets for destruction” in the event of an actual conflict.

The country has been under harsh sanctions by the United States and the United Nations Security Council for years over its deterrent nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

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