Kim turns up missile heat
NORTH Korea launched two suspected ballistic missiles into the sea near Japan yesterday, underscoring steady progress in its weapons programme and ramping up pressure on the new US administration as it reviews the North Korea policy.
The apparent tests were reported by authorities in the US, South Korea, and Japan, and coincided with the start of the Olympic torch relay in Japan. They would be the first ballistic missile tests by North Korea in nearly a year and the first reported since US President Joe Biden took office in January.
Analysts said the latest missile tests did not mean denuclearisation diplomacy was dead, but they highlight an inconvenient truth for the US administration: Pyongyang’s arsenal is advancing, posing new threats and increasing its potential bargaining power should talks resume.
“Every day that passes without a deal that tries to reduce the risks posed by North Korea’s nuclear and missile arsenal is a day that it gets bigger and badder,” said Vipin Narang, a nuclear affairs expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US. Yesterday’s launches came just days after North Korea fired several cruise missiles in an exercise that Biden said was not provocative but “business as usual”.
The Biden administration is in the final stages of its North Korea policy review, officials have said, and has been simultaneously signalling a hard line on human rights, denuclearisation and sanctions, while making diplomatic overtures that have been rebuffed by Pyongyang.
It would be a mistake for Washington to ignore the advances in North Korea’s short-range missiles, especially after leader Kim Jong Un declared in January that his military had the technology to miniaturise nuclear warheads and place them on tactical missiles, said Markus Garlauskas, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council and former US National Intelligence Officer for North Korea.
“Downplaying North Korean ballistic missile tests will not help US diplomacy with North Korea in any way, and would only encourage North Korea to further test the bounds of what the new administration can accept,” he said.
The missile launches highlight the threat North Korea’s illicit weapons programme poses to its neighbours and the international community, the US military’s Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement.
The command said it was monitoring the situation and consulting allies. There was no official comment from the White House or State Department.
The launches overshadowed the start of the Olympic torch relay in Japan, beginning a four-month countdown to the summer Games in Tokyo.
Japan lodged a formal protest through its embassy in China, while South Korea’s National Security Council expressed deep concern.
After a meeting South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong in Seoul, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed the need to establish peace and stability in Northeast Asia.
“This means all related countries need to abandon arms race and escalation of military activities of any form,” he told a news conference.
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said maintaining peace and stability on the Korean peninsula was the goal of all mankind.
“We call on the relevant sides to meet each other halfway and continue to maintain the deescalation situation to advance political settlement and work for lasting peace and security on the peninsula,” she said.
North Korea has not tested a nuclear weapon or its longest-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) since 2017, ahead of an historic meeting between leader Kim Jong Un and former US President Donald Trump in 2018.
In early 2018, it announced a moratorium on testing nuclear weapons and ICBMs, though it says it no longer feels bound by that after talks with the Trump administration faltered.
Biden’s diplomatic overtures to North Korea have similarly gone unanswered, and the North said it would not engage until the US ceased hostile policies and military exercises with South Korea.
North Korea continued to develop its nuclear and missile programmes last year in violation of UN sanctions dating to 2006. It has tested a number of new short-range missiles that can threaten South Korea and the 28 500 US troops stationed there, most recently in March last year.