SEOUL: North Korea on Saturday fired several unidentified short-range “projectiles” into the sea off its eastern coast, South Korean defence officials said, a likely sign of Pyongyang’s growing frustration at stalled diplomatic talks with Washington meant to provide sanctions relief in return for nuclear disarmament.
The South Korean military has bolstered its surveillance in case there are additional weapons launches, and South Korean and US authorities are analysing the details.
If it is confirmed that the North fired banned ballistic missiles, it would be the first such launch since a November 2017 test of an intercontinental ballistic missile. That year saw a string of increasingly powerful weapons tests from Pyongyang and a belligerent response from President Donald Trump that had many in the region fearing war.
The South initially reported on Saturday that a single missile was fired, but later issued a statement that said “several projectiles” had been launched and that they flew up to 200 kilometres before splashing into the sea toward the northeast. Experts say the North may increase these sorts of low-level provocations to apply pressure on the United States to agree to reduce crushing international sanctions.
The launch comes amid a diplomatic breakdown that has followed the failed summit earlier this year between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over the North’s pursuit of nuclear bombs that can accurately target the US mainland. The North probably has viable shorter range nuclear armed missiles but still needs more tests to perfect its longer-range weapons, according to outside analysts.
South Korea said in a statement it’s “very concerned” about North Korea’s weapons launches, calling them a violation of last year’s inter-Korean agreements to reduce animosities between the countries. The statement, issued after an emergency meeting at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, also urged North Korea to stop committing acts that would raise military tensions and join efforts to resume nuclear diplomacy.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that the United States was aware of North Korea’s actions and would continue to monitor the situation.
North Korea wants widespread sanctions relief in return for disarmament moves that the United States has rejected as insufficient. In a sign of Pyongyang’s growing frustration, it recently demanded that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo be removed from nuclear negotiations, and criticised national security adviser John Bolton. North Korea said last month that it had tested a new type of unspecified “tactical guided weapon”.
North Korea could choose to fire more missiles with longer ranges in coming weeks to ramp up its pressure on Washington to come up with a roadmap for nuclear talks by the end of this year, said Nam Sung-wook, a professor at Korea University.
“North Korea wants to say, ‘We have missiles and nuclear weapons to cope with (US-led) sanctions,’” said Nam. “They can fire short-range missiles a couple more times this month, and there is no guarantee that they won’t fire a medium-range missile next month.”
During the diplomacy that followed the North’s weapons tests of 2017, Kim Jong Un said that the North would not test nuclear devices or ICBMs. These short-range projectiles don’t appear to violate that self-imposed moratorium, and may instead be a way to register Kim’s displeasure with Washington without having the diplomacy collapse.
Japan’s Defence Ministry said the projectiles weren’t a security threat and didn’t reach anywhere near the country’s coast. Japan will likely avoid any harsh response as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seeks to secure his own summit with Kim.
The latest firing comes just a day after South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said Pyongyang should show “visible, concrete and substantial” denuclearisation action if it wants sanctions relief.
The Trump-Kim talks in Hanoi broke down after cash-strapped North Korea demanded immediate sanctions relief, but the two sides disagreed on what Pyongyang should give up in return.
Earlier this week, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui warned Washington of an “unwanted outcome” if it did not adjust its stance on economic sanctions.
The Hodo Peninsula, where the Saturday firing took place, has been used as a training area for “live-fire testing, training exercises for artillery and coastal defence cruise missiles” since the 1960s, according to the authoritative website 38 North.
It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that a “formal training area” was established in the region, and Hodo has been “increasingly used for ballistic missile and long-range artillery rocket testing” during the last 10 years, it added.
Last week, on the first anniversary of the inter-Korean summit in Panmunjom, Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Washington and Seoul “keep pushing the situation of the Korean peninsula and the region to an undesirable phase”, criticising their joint military exercises.
“Chairman Kim has decided to remind the world — and specifically the United States — that his weapons capabilities are growing by the day,” said Harry Kazianis, director of Korean Studies at the Center for the National Interest.
“My fear is that we are at the beginning stages of a slide back to the days of nuclear war threats and personal insults, a dangerous cycle of spiking tensions that must be avoided at all costs.”