North Korea’s recent drills show west cannot ignore nuclear threat

South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk-yeol, described the recent drill as effectively ‘a territorial invasion by a missile’. Photograph: Ahn Young-joon/AP

In an overcrowded diplomatic nuclear space, the last thing the west needed to hear was that North Korea was back in business. It fired 25 missiles of various kinds on Wednesday – including one that landed close to South Korea’s waters, in what President Yoon Suk-yeol said was effectively “a territorial invasion by a missile”.

It was the first time since the 1945 division of the peninsula that North Korea weapons had landed so close to South Korea, 26km beyond the northern limit line.