N. Korea fires missiles amid US-S. Korea drills

SEOUL: North Korea fired three short-range ballistic missiles, the US military said, reviving tensions with Washington after President Donald Trump had said the reclusive nation’s leader Kim Jong-un was starting to show some “respect”.

The launches yesterday came as tens of thousands of South Korean and US troops took part in joint military drills in the south of the peninsula, which Pyongyang views as highly provocative.

Two of the missiles failed in flight and the third blew up “almost immediately”, with none of the weapons posing a threat to either North America or the US territory of Guam, said a spokesman for US Pacific Command.

Lee Il-woo, an analyst at Korea Defence Network, said the launch represented a “low-level provocative act” carried out in response to the US-South Korea exercises, seen by Pyongyang as a rehearsal for an invasion of its own territory.

The joint exercises started on Monday at a time of heightened tensions between Pyongyang and Washington, after two successful intercontinental ballistic missile launches carried out by North Korea last month apparently brought most of the United States into range for the first time.

The reported failure of the latest short-range missiles suggested that Pyongyang may have been trialling new technology or using up old weaponry, Lee said.

Trump had said on Wednesday that Kim Jong-un was “starting to respect” the United States, hours after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said talks with the nuclear-armed North over its banned weapons programmes might be possible “in the near future”.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump was aware of the launches. — AFP