Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
N. Korea missile launch tests new S. Korea leader
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile on Sunday — just five days after South Korea elected a president who expressed a desire to reach out to Pyongyang.
The missile flew for half an hour and reached an unusually high altitude before landing in the Sea of Japan, said the South Korean, Japanese and U.S. militaries. Tokyo said the flight pattern could indicate a new type of missile.
Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency said Monday the missile was a Hwasong-12 “capable of carrying a large-size heavy nuclear warhead.”
The launch jeopardizes new South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s willingness for dialogue with the North, and it came as U.S., Japanese and European navies gather for joint war games in the Pacific.
“The president expressed deep regret over the fact that this reckless provocation occurred just days after a new government was launched in South Korea,” senior presidential secretary Yoon Young-chan said. “The president said we are leaving open the possibility of dialogue with North Korea, but we should sternly deal with a provocation to prevent North Korea from miscalculating.”
Moon said as he took his oath of office last week that he’d be willing to visit the North if the circumstances were right.
The U.N. Security Council said Sunday it will hold urgent consultations on North Korea’s latest ballistic missile test. Uruguay holds the council presidency this month, and its U.N. Mission announced the closed consultations will take place on Tuesday.
U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Sunday that the U.S. has been working well with China, Pyongyang’s closest ally, and she raised the possibility of new sanctions against North Korea.
While President Donald Trump has said he’d be “honored” to talk with leader Kim Jong Un under favorable conditions, his administration on Sunday seemed to throw cold water on the idea of talks with North Korea.
“Having a missile test is not the way to sit down with the president, because he’s absolutely not going to do it,” Haley said.
She said it was time to “send a strong, unified message that this is unacceptable, and I think you’ll see the international community do that.”
North Korea’s past satellite rocket launches have been called clandestine tests of ICBM technology, but it is not believed to have tested a true intercontinental ballistic missile.
Japanese officials said the missile flew for about 30 minutes, traveling about 500 miles and reaching an unusually high altitude of 1,240 miles.
David Wright, co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said Sunday’s launch may have been of a new mobile, two-stage liquid-fueled missile that North Korea displayed in an April 15 military parade.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the launch was “absolutely unacceptable” and that Japan would respond resolutely.
The White House took note of the missile landing close to Russia’s Pacific coast and said in a statement that North Korea has been “a flagrant menace for far too long.”