[The launch came the week after North Korea warned that planned military exercises involving U.S. and South Korean forces would jeopardize proposed disarmament talks with Washington, and hinted it might respond by resuming nuclear and missile tests. It accused Trump of reneging on a commitment to suspend the exercises.]
By Simon Denyer and John Hudson
TOKYO
― North Korea fired two
short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast into the Sea of Japan on
Thursday morning, according to the South Korean government, in the first such
launch since President Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in late June.
They were launched near the coastal city of
Wonsan at 5:34 and 5:57 a.m., respectively, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff
said in a statement, with officials later saying the first missile flew about
265 miles at an altitude of about 30 miles, and the second traveling some 430
miles.
South Korea’s National Security Council said
it had assessed the projectiles to be a “new type of short-range ballistic
missile,” but said it would make a final conclusion in coordination with the
United States.
The launch came the week after North Korea
warned that planned military exercises involving U.S. and South Korean forces
would jeopardize proposed disarmament talks with Washington, and hinted it
might respond by resuming nuclear and missile tests. It accused Trump of
reneging on a commitment to suspend the exercises.
A U.S. official familiar with North Korean
affairs said the move appears to explicitly test Trump’s patience, as the
president has repeatedly hailed his diplomatic success in halting the North
from firing missiles into the Sea of Japan (also known as the East Sea), an act
that infuriates Tokyo.
After North Korea last launched two
short-range ballistic missiles in May, national security adviser John Bolton
said that was a clear violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, but Trump
repeatedly played down the significance of that test as he sought to bring Kim
back to the negotiating table. South Korea also refrained from describing the
last launch as ballistic missiles but this time had no such reluctance.
A short-range ballistic missile test is a
violation of United Nations Security Council Resolutions, but not a violation
of Pyongyang’s pledge to refrain from intercontinental ballistic missile and
nuclear tests.
Japanese government officials told the Kyodo
News agency they had identified Thursday’s projectiles as short-range ballistic
missiles, while Japanese Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya called the launch “very
regrettable,” Jiji news agency reported.
South Korean Defense Ministry spokeswoman
Choi Hyun-soo urged North Korea to halt actions that were unhelpful to
relieving tensions on the peninsula.
The latest launches further dampen the
optimistic mood struck by the Trump administration and North Korea following
the meeting on June 30 between Trump and Kim at the village of Panmunjom in the
demilitarized zone between the two Koreas.
At the time, the two leaders promised to
direct their aides to engage in working-level talks to make progress on
denuclearization discussions. Trump said the discussions would begin in two to
three weeks. Instead of making progress, the North Koreans have hardened their
outward posture, showing off a new submarine on Tuesday that experts said
appeared designed to carry nuclear ballistic missiles, and rejecting a South
Korean offer of aid as the country faces severe food shortages.
Vipin Narang, an associate professor of
international security studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
said Thursday’s launch, and the unveiling of the submarine, show that “Trump’s
trip to Panmunjom may not yet have had its desired effect.”
Experts said it was unlikely that North
Korea’s moves represent a rejection of Washington’s bid for dialogue and were
more likely to be a show of strength and a negotiating tactic.
“I think they may have interpreted the DMZ
meeting as evidence of overeagerness on our part, so a natural response if you
feel like somebody’s overeager is you pull back a bit and try to see what else
you can get,” said Scott Snyder, a North Korea expert at the Council on Foreign
Relations.
Duyeon Kim at the Center for a New American
Security said if the missiles prove to be similar to those launched in May,
they should not be dismissed because they are capable of carrying nuclear
warheads and threaten South Korea and U.S. forces there. She said the move was
probably designed to “make things difficult” but not kill diplomacy, while
perfecting Pyongyang’s weapons.
Abraham Denmark, director of the Asia Program
at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said the launch could
be an effort by Pyongyang to get Washington’s attention to get talks going
without acting so provocatively as to elicit a major response.
“Yet beyond questions of negotiation
strategy, these demonstrations make one thing clear: Despite all the summits
and rhetoric, North Korea remains highly dangerous,” he said.
Hudson reported from Washington. Reis
Thebault in Washington and Min Joo Kim in Seoul contributed to this report
