The White House released a statement Wednesday night condemning a North Korean missile test that prompted an evacuation call for the Japanese island of Hokkaido.
National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said President Joe Biden and his national security team are monitoring the situation along with United States allies, and they warned North Korea against continuing its missile tests.
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“This launch is a brazen violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions and needlessly raises tensions and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region,” Watson said in the statement. “We urge all countries to condemn these violations and call on the[Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] to come to the table for serious negotiations. The door has not closed on diplomacy, but Pyongyang must immediately cease its destabilizing actions and instead choose diplomatic engagement.”
Japan’s government-run emergency broadcasting system told millions of people on Hokkaido to run for cover or “evacuate immediately” after it predicted that an intercontinental ballistic missile fired by North Korea would land on or near the island at 8 a.m. local time. However, the Japanese government later announced that its missile warning system made a mistake, and the missile did not land in Japanese waters.
The missile ended up landing in the sea, east of North Korea, according to the Japanese Coast Guard.
The false alarm came as North Korea ramps up its missile tests in response to the U.S. and South Korea’s joint military exercises. North Korea claimed that the military drills are rehearsals for an upcoming invasion by its neighbor, but the U.S. and South Korea have maintained that the exercises are solely defensive.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un recently called for a strengthening of his country’s war deterrence in a more offensive manner to counter U.S. “aggression.”
Watson warned that if North Korea does not scale back its testing or if it launches an actual attack on Japan or South Korea, the U.S. would “take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the American homeland and Republic of Korea and Japanese allies.”
