Defense Ministry: "Monitoring North Korean missiles from the preparation phase... ROK-US assets sufficient to detect and intercept them"

[Financial News] The Ministry of National Defense said the South Korean military had been closely monitoring North Korea's surprise launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile the previous day from the preparation stage. It assessed that the missile could be sufficiently detected and intercepted using defense assets held by South Korea and the United States.
On the 4th, the Ministry of National Defense's spokesperson's office issued the ministry's position on North Korea's ballistic missile launch, clearly reaffirming the firm combined defense posture of the Republic of Korea-United States Alliance (ROK-US Alliance) and its missile defense capabilities against North Korea. The statement is seen as a direct rebuttal to claims made the previous day by Kim Yo Jong, a deputy department director of the Workers' Party of Korea, who touted North Korea's ability to alter low-altitude flight trajectories and its adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, saying, "The South Korean and Japanese military authorities failed to track our missile to the end, and there is no way to avoid a strike."
In its statement, the Ministry of National Defense said, "Our military has closely monitored North Korea's recent successive missile launches from the preparation stage," making clear that it had tracked North Korea's military activities from the outset. It added, "We detected and tracked the missile immediately after launch and accurately identified the launch point," dismissing North Korea's claim that the Earth's curvature had created an approximately 300-kilometer blind zone where detection was impossible, causing it to lose track of the target after the first jump point.
The military authorities also emphasized the importance of maintaining a firm combined defense posture between South Korea and the United States. They stated, "The missile recently launched by North Korea is assessed to be within a range that can be sufficiently detected and intercepted by the defense assets held by South Korea and the United States," reaffirming the effectiveness and soundness of the existing combined missile defense (MD) network.
The Ministry of National Defense also strongly condemned the launch, stating, "North Korea's ballistic missile launch is a grave act that violates UNSC resolutions." The military authorities issued both a warning and an appeal to North Korea, urging it to "immediately stop actions that raise tensions on the Korean Peninsula and join efforts to establish peace on the peninsula."
Foreign affairs and security experts view the Ministry of National Defense's decision to issue an official position swiftly, just one day after North Korea's provocation, and to explicitly state that the launch point had been identified and interception was possible as a tactical response intended to maintain the initiative without being drawn into North Korea's "conditioning-style" show of force and psychological warfare campaign.
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