North Korea again: Fires warning signal to Biden with two ballistic missiles

Photo: North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un
North Korea test fired two ballistic missiles early on Thursday, in the biggest challenge so far to Joe Biden’s attempts to engage the regime over its nuclear weapons program.

The Guardian of London reports that the projectiles were launched on North Korea’s east coast and are believed to have landed in the sea outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, officials in Tokyo said.

The tests come soon after Biden dismissed as “business as usual” the launch last weekend of two short-range missiles, and cast a shadow over the start of the Olympic torch relay in Japan.

“It’s been a year since they last launched a missile,” Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, told reporters. “This threatens the peace and security of our country and the region. It is also a violation of UN resolutions.”

South Korea’s military said the North fired two “unidentified projectiles” into the Sea of Japan, known as the East Sea in Korea, from South Hamgyong province. No further information on the device type was immediately available, but it added the military had “strengthened its monitoring posture in close coordination with the US”.

South Korea’s national security council voiced “deep concern” over the launches, the presidential Blue House said in a statement.

The US military’s Pacific Command said the launches highlighted the threat North Korea’s illicit weapons program posed to its neighbours and the international community, adding that it was monitoring the situation and consulting allies.

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has used missile and nuclear tests both as a demonstration of the regime’s growing military might and to pressure Washington into negotiating on a more equal footing.

North Korea has not tested a nuclear weapon or an intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) since 2017, ahead of a historic meeting between Kim and Donald Trump in 2018.