N. Korea says leader oversaw weapons tests

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Sunday leader Kim Jong Un supervised test-firings of an unspecified new weapons system, which extended a streak of weapons demonstrations that are seen as an attempt to build leverage ahead of negotiations with the United States.

The report by North Korean state media came hours after President Donald Trump said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has expressed a desire to meet again to start nuclear negotiations after joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises end and apologized for the flurry of recent short-range ballistic launches that rattled U.S. allies in the region.

North Korea’s Foreign Ministry in a separate statement on Sunday blasted South Korea for continuing its military drills with the United States, and it said that future dialogue will be held strictly between Pyongyang and Washington and not between the Koreas.

The report by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency came a day after South Korea’s military said it detected the North launching what appeared to be two shortrange ballistic missiles into the sea.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff on Saturday said the presumed ballistic missiles fired from the North’s east coast flew about 248 miles before landing in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

KCNA said Kim expressed “great satisfaction” over the testing firings.

The agency didn’t specify whether the weapons were ballistic missiles or rocket artillery, but said they were developed to suit the North’s “terrain condition” and provide “advantageous tactical character different to existing weapons systems.”

North Korea’s fifth round of weapons launches in less than three weeks was seen as a protest of the slow pace of nuclear negotiations with the United States and continuance of U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises the North claims are an invasion rehearsal.

Experts say Trump’s downplaying of the North’s recent short-range launches allowed the country more room to intensify its testing activity while it seeks to build leverage ahead of a possible resumption of negotiations, which had stalled since the collapse of Trump’s second summit with Kim in Vietnam in February over disagreements on exchanging sanctions relief and disarmament.

North Korea has claimed that the joint military drills between the allies, which began Monday, compel it to “develop, test and deploy the powerful physical means essential for national defense.”