North Korea yesterday fired missiles for the third time in eight days, a series of launches that analysts said were designed to improve military capabilities and pressure the US and South Korea as they seek to restart denuclearization talks.
US officials, who have been hoping to revive the stalled talks with North Korea, played down the launches.
The North has been testing missiles, despite US President Donald Trump meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on June 30, when they agreed to revive the talks.
The diplomatic process might have some bumps, but talks with North Korea are “going on even as we speak,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in Bangkok, where he is attending an ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting.
South Korea’s government said that the latest projectiles fired by the North appeared to be new short-range ballistic missiles.
The missiles flew 220km and reached an altitude of 25km, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in Seoul.
A US official said that US intelligence had detected at least one projectile, and possibly more, that did not pose a threat to North America.
US officials said that initial information indicated that the launches were similar to two other short-range missile tests by Pyongyang since last week.
North Korean state media said that Kim on Wednesday oversaw the firing of what it described as a new large-caliber, multiple-launch guided rocket system.
He also observed the launch of a short-range ballistic missile last week, state media said.
The launches appear to be intended to put pressure on South Korea and the US to stop planned military exercises later this month and offer other concessions.
Kim’s government has been assiduously improving military capabilities, as well as signaling negotiating demands, with the tests, Ewha Womans University international relations professor Leif-Eric Easley said in Seoul.
“The aim is not only to increase Pyongyang’s ability to coerce its neighbors, another goal is to normalize North Korea’s sanctions-violating tests as if they were as legitimate as South Korea’s defensive exercises,” Easley said.
Trump was asked at the White House before he set off for a campaign trip to Ohio if he thought Kim was testing him and said that the launches did not break the North Korean leader’s promises.
Trump also said they were short-range missiles.
“We never made an agreement on that. I have no problem,” he said.
While Trump said that he never made an agreement on short-range missiles, the 15-member UN Security Council in 2006 unanimously demanded that North Korea suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile program and “re-establish its pre-existing commitments to a moratorium on missile launching.”
The Security Council on Thursday met behind closed doors in New York to discuss the latest missile launches.
After the meeting, representatives from Britain, France and Germany called on North Korea to engage in meaningful talks with the US and said that international sanctions need to be fully enforced until Pyongyang has dismantled its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
The UN sanctions remained fully in place, Pompeo said.
“We’re working with countries all across the world, many in this region, doing great work to enforce those,” he said.
Pompeo also said that he was disappointed his North Korean counterpart had canceled a planned trip to the ASEAN forum.
“I think it would’ve given us an opportunity to have another set of conversations,” Pompeo said. “I hope it won’t be too long before I have a chance to do that.”
Nuclear envoys from the US, South Korea and Japan yesterday held a meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN forum, where they were expected to discuss the North’s latest missile tests and ways to restart working-level talks between the US and North Korea.
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