North Korea fires several short-range projectiles, South Korean military says

A photo from the North Korean government shows the 2017 launch of a Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile. (AP)

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said the North fired “multiple unidentified short-range projectiles” into the sea over a 20-minute period. The JCS initially identified the projectiles as “short-range missiles” and shortly later relabeled them as “projectiles.”

“Our military has ramped up surveillance and vigilance in case of a further launch from North Korea,” the JCS said. “South Korea and the United States are closely coordinating to maintain a full readiness posture.”

In Washington, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said, “We are aware of North Korea’s actions tonight. We will continue to monitor as necessary.”

Pyongyang announced a self-imposed moratorium on missiles in November 2017, which helped set the stage for the North Korean leader’s diplomatic outreach the following year. Grace Liu, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif., said the moratorium was “verbal, self-imposed and on intercontinental-ballistic missiles,” and called the launch “a signal that they want some movement on US-DPRK issues,” referring to North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with President Trump twice over the past year to press for sanctions relief in exchange for taking steps toward dismantling its nuclear weapons program.

After his second meeting with Trump earlier this year in Hanoi ended without a deal, Kim oversaw a test of a new “tactical guided weapon” in April.

Ankit Panda, an adjunct senior fellow in the Defense Posture Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said the recent military provocation was not a dealbreakerer, but a message to hard-liners inside the regime. “The message here is not that diplomacy is over — remember, Kim has set the clock ticking to the end of the year.”

Kim said he will wait until “the end of this year” for a “bold decision from the United States” to come up with a better suggestion to break the diplomatic impasse./.

VNF/Washington Post