N Korea test-fires missile as envoy shoots speech at UN
SEOUL/NEW YORK: North Korea fired a short-range missile into the sea on Tuesday at nearly the same moment its UN diplomat was decrying America’s “hostile policy” against it, in an apparent return to its pattern of mixing weapons displays with peace overtures to wrest outside concessions.
The launch, its third round of tests this month, came only three days after North Korea repeated its offer for conditional talks with South Korea.
Some experts say the latest missile launch was likely meant to test how South Korea would respond as North Korea needs Seoul to persuade Washington to ease economic sanctions and make other concessions.
In an emergency national security council meeting, the South Korean government expressed regret over what it called “a short-range missile launch” by the North.
South Korea’s military earlier said the object fired from North Korea’s northern Jagang province flew towards the waters off the North’s eastern coast.
The US Indo-pacific Command said the launch didn’t pose an immediate threat but highlighted “the destabilising impact of [North Korea’s] illicit weapons programme”.
Outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said North Korea fired “what could be a ballistic missile” and that his government stepped up its vigilance.
A ballistic missile launch would violate a UN Security Council ban on North Korean ballistic activities, but the council doesn’t impose new sanctions on North Korea for launches of short-range weapons.
The launch as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s envoy to the UN, Kim Song, spoke to the body’s annual General Assembly in New York.
He used his time at the podium to repeat an often-used demand for the US to drop what Pyongyang sees as a hostile policy toward it.