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Senior officials in the Biden administration are downplaying North Korea’s short-range missile launches last weekend and say the US president is still open to dialogue with North Korea.
The officials, who briefed journalists on the missile launches, said Tuesday that they were at the lower end of the spectrum and not covered by various UN security council resolutions. They said the Biden administration was close to completing its review of North Korean policy and that national security adviser Jake Sullivan will discuss it next week with his counterparts in Japan and South Korea.
North Korea launched two short-range missiles over the weekend, authorities said. One expert suggested it was a relatively mild measure as Pyongyang is pushing for sanctions on its nuclear and missile programs to be relaxed.
Two US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to offer details about the launches, which came after North Korea refused to participate in repeated behind-the-scenes diplomatic proposals from Joe Biden’s team since mid-February.
Jenny Town, director of 38 North, a US-based website that tracks North Korea, said that if North Korea had conducted a missile test, the measure was “pretty mild.”
A senior US general warned last week of the near-term possibility of a much more provocative move: North Korea’s decision to begin flight testing an improved design for its ICBMs.
Such a move would dramatically increase the tension between the United States and North Korea.
“I guess it has more to do with joint exercises than anything else. This kind of testing around military exercises is quite common, ”Town said, referring to joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea.
The drills earlier this month puzzled Pyongyang even though they were scaled down this year to become computer simulated drills.
A senior North Korean diplomat said last week that the country would never respond to US diplomatic proposals until Washington abandoned hostile policies and called for sanctions relief.
North Korea maintained and developed its nuclear and ballistic missile programs throughout 2020 in violation of international sanctions, helping to fund them with some $ 300 million stolen through cyberattacks, according to independent UN sanctions supervisors. .
North Korea has been subject to UN sanctions since 2006. The 15-member security council has strengthened them over the years in an effort to cut funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Typically, China and Russia, which are veto powers of the security council along with the United States, Britain and France, have seen a test of just one long-range missile or nuclear weapon as a trigger for possible sanctions from the UN.
