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SEOUL – North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast on Thursday, in its first significant provocation against the United States under Biden’s presidency, US and Japanese officials said.
South Korea confirmed that North Korea had launched two unidentified projectiles, but Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan was the first regional leader to identify them as “ballistic missiles.” A senior US official also confirmed that the projectiles were ballistic missiles.
“It threatens the peace and security of Japan and the region, and is a violation of United Nations resolutions,” the Japanese leader said on Twitter, referring to the United Nations Security Council’s ban on developing and testing technologies. of ballistic missiles by the North. “I strongly protest and strongly condemn it.”
The missiles landed in waters between North Korea and Japan and outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, Suga said. The Japanese military said the missiles flew 280 miles, reaching a height of 62 miles.
In Tokyo and Seoul, governments convened their National Security Councils to discuss North Korea’s latest weapons test.
South Korean authorities were analyzing the data collected from the launch to determine the type of projectile, the country’s military said in a brief statement. The South Korean military uses the term “unidentified projectile” when it cannot immediately determine whether the object was a ballistic missile.
Over the weekend, North Korea also tested two short-range cruise missiles, South Korean defense officials confirmed Wednesday. But that test did not violate United Nations resolutions, which prohibit North Korea from developing or testing ballistic missile technologies.
The previous test took place on Sunday off North Korea’s west coast, just days after the country accused the United States and South Korea of causing “a stench” on the Korean peninsula with their annual military exercises.
North Korea’s weapons program has been a thorny problem for the past four American presidents. Each approached the country with different incentives and sanctions, but none managed to persuade it to stop building nuclear warheads and the missiles to launch them.
North Korea’s weapons program has advanced rapidly. In 2017, North Korea fired missiles at Japan and threatened to launch an “enveloping” attack near the US territory of Guam.
After the country launched its first ICBMs later that year, former President Donald J. Trump hoped that direct talks with Kim would persuade the impoverished and isolated country to end its program.
Despite three face-to-face meetings, the leaders could not reach an agreement, depriving Trump of what he hoped would be a supreme foreign policy achievement. Instead, the failed summits gave Kim more time to further develop his weapons, experts say.
Analysts are watching Washington closely to see if Biden’s approach to North Korea will follow that of former President Barack Obama, rather than Trump’s more direct engagement.
The Biden administration has been studying how to deal with North Korea, which Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has called “a difficult problem.” When Blinken was in Seoul last week, he said the Biden administration planned to complete a North Korean policy review in the coming weeks in close coordination with South Korea and Japan. He said the review included both “pressure options and potential for future diplomacy.”
During the first months of his presidency, Obama was also greeted by a North Korean provocation when the country detonated a nuclear bomb. Instead of negotiating, Obama opted for a policy of “strategic patience”, which meant a gradual increase in sanctions. At his Senate confirmation hearing, Blinken said the Biden administration would “review the entire approach and policy toward North Korea, because this is a difficult problem.”
In the weekend’s test, missiles were fired from a site near Nampo, a port southwest of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, said Ha Tae-keung, a South Korean lawmaker who was briefed by intelligence officials on Wednesday. .
When North Korea launches missile tests, they are usually held through state media and are quickly confirmed by the South Korean military. But North Korean media did not report on Sunday’s test and have yet to report on Thursday’s launch. South Korean officials said on Wednesday they had detected the test when it occurred, but decided not to immediately report it. They did not elaborate on their decision.
South Korean defense officials tend to view short-range cruise missile tests less of a provocation than ballistic launches. They also tend not to highlight what they see as minor provocations from the North when trying to promote inter-Korean dialogue.
North Korea’s missile launch on Thursday came a day after senior officials in the Biden administration sought to downplay the importance of the weekend’s missile test, which they said was part of “normal military activity” and he was on the “low end” of a provocation level. President Biden himself appeared to dismiss the earlier test, telling reporters that “there is no new wrinkle in what they did.”
Officials and analysts in the region have been watching North Korea closely to see if the country would seek to escalate tensions to gain influence before possible negotiations with the Biden administration. North Korea conducted its last ballistic missile test in March last year when it launched two missiles off its east coast.
A new ballistic missile would indicate that the country was once again defying UN resolutions and continuing to develop its arsenal of ballistic missiles, some of which it said were designed to carry nuclear warheads.
North Korea has rejected any serious dialogue with Washington since the second summit between its leader, Kim Jong-un, and President Trump ended abruptly in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February 2019. They met again briefly on the Korean border. North and South Korea in June that same year, but failed to reduce their differences.
Pyongyang has made several hostile statements toward the United States in recent days, with analysts saying the missile test could be part of a subtle pressure tactic, raising the possibility that North Korea will revert to a new cycle of tensions. in the peninsula to express concessions. from Washington.
The Biden administration has stepped up its efforts to work more closely with its regional allies, South Korea and Japan, to better manage North Korea’s growing arms capabilities, as well as a rising China. Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III visited Seoul and Tokyo last week as part of the administration’s first high-level diplomatic tour of Asia.
But North Korea said it did not feel the need to respond to recent attempts by the Biden administration to open a dialogue, dismissing them as a “trick to delay time.” In a message to President Xi Jinping of China, North Korean leader Mr. Kim stressed the need to strengthen unity between the two countries to “deal with hostile forces.”
North Korea has not conducted any long-range ballistic missile tests for more than three years. But during a military parade in October, it unveiled a new, untested ICBM that appeared larger and more powerful than the ICBM it tested in late 2017 before Kim began diplomacy with Trump.
At a party meeting in January, Kim vowed to continue advancing his country’s nuclear capabilities, declaring that he would build new solid-fuel ICBMs and make its nuclear warheads lighter and more accurate.
Makiko inoue contributed reporting from Tokyo, and Eric schmitt from Washington.
