N. Korea reported to fire off missiles in reaction to drills
WASHINGTON — North Korea fired short-range missiles last weekend after denouncing Washington for going forward with joint military exercises with South Korea, according to people familiar with the situation.
The missile tests, which have not previously been reported, represent North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s first direct challenge to President Joe Biden, whose aides have not outlined their approach to the regime’s nuclear threat during an ongoing review of U.S.-North Korea policy.
For weeks, U.S. defense officials said intelligence sources indicated that North Korea might carry out missile tests. The regime elevated its complaints about U.S. military exercises last week when Kim’s sister warned that if the Biden administration “wants to sleep in peace for the coming four years, it had better refrain from causing a stink.”
The tests put renewed pressure on the United States to develop a strategy to address a nuclear threat that has bedeviled successive Republican and Democratic administrations for decades.
State Department spokesman Ned Price has said the Biden administration wants to develop a “new approach” to North Korea, but he has offered few details. U.S. diplomats have informed allies in Asia in recent weeks that the strategy will differ from President Donald Trump’s top-down approach of meeting directly with Kim and President Barack Obama’s bottom-up formulation, which swore off engagement until Pyongyang improved its behavior.
Earlier this month, U.S. intelligence agencies detected signals that North Korea may resume its testing, said three people familiar with the situation who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive subjects. Satellite imagery suggesting an uptick in activity at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear research center published by the 38 North website also worried U.S. officials.
Biden administration officials disclosed to a Reuters reporter that U.S. officials reached out to North Korea through several channels starting in mid-February but did not receive a response, said people familiar with the authorized leak. White House press secretary Jen Psaki later confirmed that attempted outreach during a news briefing.
At the time, two constituencies were pushing the administration to engage with North Korea.
Arms-control organizations in Washington, some of whom have a close working rapport with the Biden administration, worried that more North Korean testing could be days away. “There is an urgent need to reengage with the North because Pyongyang continues to amass more plutonium for nuclear weapons,” said Darryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “The sooner the better.”
That concern was shared by South Korea, whose foreign minister, Chung Euiyong, called for an “early resumption of dialogue” between the United States and North Korea.
U.S. officials did not say whether the United States made substantive or significant proposals to North Korea in the outreach. But North Korea’s first vice foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, made clear that the regime was not satisfied with what was communicated.
“We don’t think there is a need to respond to the U.S. delaying-time trick again,” said Choe said. “We will disregard such an attempt of the U.S. in the future, too.”
North Korea’s move occurs as the leaders of China and North Korea are reaffirming their traditional alliance after contentious talks between top diplomats from Washington and Beijing and diplomatic isolation and economic problems in the North that have left it ever-more dependent on the Chinese.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Tuesday that Kim called for stronger “unity and cooperation” with China in the face of challenges posed by “hostile forces” while exchanging messages with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
According to the Korean Central News Agency and China’s Xinhua news agency, Xi in his own message to Kim described bilateral relations as a “valuable asset” to both countries and vowed to make unspecified contributions to the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
The news agency said Xi also expressed a commitment to “provide the peoples of the two countries with better life.” Some analysts saw this as an indication that China soon would provide North Korea with food, fertilizer and other aid.