Tensions spike after N. Korea missile launch

United States will ‘take care of it,’ Trump says

WE ARE VERY CONCERNED AND WE HAVE CONDEMNED THEM PUBLICLY — KORO BESSHO

WASHINGTON • North Korea abruptly ended a 10-week pause in its weapons testing Tuesday by launching what the Pentagon believes was an intercontinental ballistic missile, a move that will escalate already high tensions with Washington.

Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning said that the missile was launched from Sain Ni, North Korea, and travelled about 1,000 kilometres before landing in the Sea of Japan. Japan said it may have landed within 370 kilometres of its coast.

The launch is North Korea’s first since it fired an intermediate-range missile over Japan on Sept. 15, and it appeared to shatter chances that the hiatus could lead to renewed diplomacy over the reclusive country’s nuclear program. U.S. officials have sporadically floated the idea of direct talks with North Korea if it maintained restraint.

An intercontinental ballistic missile test will be considered particularly provocative as it would signal further progress by Pyongyang in developing a weapon of mass destruction that could strike the U.S. mainland, which President Donald Trump has vowed to prevent.

Seoul’s joint chiefs of staff said the U.S. and South Korean militaries were analyzing the launch data from the missile, which it said was fired from an area in a city close to North Korea’s capital. In response, it said South Korea conducted a precision-strike drill, without elaborating.

South Korea’s presidential office said it was holding a National Security Council meeting at 6 a.m. Wednesday local time to discuss the launch.

A week ago, the Trump administration declared North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism, further straining ties between governments that are still technically at war. Washington also imposed new sanctions on North Korean shipping firms and Chinese trading companies dealing with the North.

North Korea called the terror designation a “serious provocation” that justifies its development of nuclear weapons.

Echoing the initial U.S. assessment, Japan’s Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said the missile was likely an intercontinental ballistic missile. He said it was launched on a highly lofted trajectory and reached a high point exceeding 4,000 kilometres.

“We can assume it was ICBM-class,” Onodera said.

South Korea said the missile travelled a distance of 960 kilometres. It estimated the apogee at 4,500 kilometres.

Japan’s UN Ambassador Koro Bessho says the government has told the North Koreans “that we criticize their behaviour in the strongest terms possible.”

He told reporters Tuesday at UN headquarters that “we are very concerned and we have condemned them publicly.”

UN Security Council president Sebastiano Cardi said he has been in contact with key UN members, but no request has been made yet for a meeting.

Cardi says he is scheduled to brief the Security Council on Wednesday.

Japan’s chief cabinet secretary said the missile might have landed inside the country’s exclusive economic zone in the Sea of Japan.

Cardi said if it fell in that zone, it would be an “even greater” danger.

Trump said the United States will “take care of it” following the launch.

Trump told reporters Tuesday that “it is a situation that we will handle.”

Press secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted that Trump “was briefed, while missile was still in the air, on the situation in North Korea.”

At the time of the launch, Trump was in a meeting with U.S. Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Trump has ramped up economic and diplomatic pressure on the North to prevent its development of a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike the U.S. mainland.

Tuesday’s launch came as the U.S. discussed with South Korea next steps on North Korea. The South’s top nuclear negotiator, Lee Dohoon, was in Washington, D.C., for talks with Joseph Yun, the U.S. envoy for North Korea policy.