SEOUL: North Korea fired missiles for the third time in eight days on Friday, a series of launches that analysts say are designed to improve military capabilities and pressure the United States and South Korea as they seek to restart denuclearization talks.
US officials, who have been hoping to revive the stalled talks with North Korea, played down the launches. The North has been testing missiles despite US President Donald Trump’s June 30 meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, where they agreed to revive the talks.
The diplomatic process may have some bumps but conversations with North Korea are “going on even as we speak,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in Bangkok, where he is attending a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
South Korea’s government said the latest projectiles fired by the North appeared to be new short-range ballistic missiles. The missiles flew 220 km (135 miles) and reached an altitude of 25 km (15 miles), the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in Seoul said.
A US official said US intelligence had detected at least one projectile, and possibly more, that did not pose a threat to North America. US officials said initial information indicated they were similar to two other short-range missile tests by Pyongyang since last week.
North Korean state media said Kim oversaw the firing of what it described as a new large-calibre, multiple-launch guided rocket system on Wednesday. He also observed the launch of a short-range ballistic missile last week.
The launches appear to be intended to put pressure on South Korea and the United States to stop planned military exercises later this month and offer other concessions.
Kim’s government was assiduously improving military capabilities as well as signalling negotiating demands with the tests, said Leif-Eric Easley, an international relations professor at Seoul’s Ewha University.
“The aim is not only to increase Pyongyang’s ability to coerce its neighbors, another goal is to normalize North Korea’s sanctions-violating tests as if they were as legitimate as South Korea’s defensive exercises,” Easley said.
’NO PROBLEM’
Trump was asked at the White House before he set off for a campaign trip to Ohio if he thought Kim was testing him and said the launches did not violate the North Korean leader’s promises.
Trump also said they were short-range missiles. “We never made an agreement on that. I have no problem,” he said.
While Trump says he never made an agreement on short-range missiles, the 15-member United Nations Security Council unanimously demanded in 2006 that North Korea suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile program and “re-establish its pre-existing commitments to a moratorium on missile launching.”
The UN Security Council met behind closed doors in New York on Thursday to discuss the latest missile launches.
Representatives from Britain, France and Germany called on North Korea after the meeting to engage in meaningful talks with the United States and said international sanctions need to be fully enforced until Pyongyang has dismantled its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Pompeo said the UN sanctions remained fully in place.
“We’re working with countries all across the world, many in this region, doing great work to enforce those,” he said. Pompeo also said he was disappointed his North Korean counterpart had canceled a planned trip to the ASEAN forum.
“I think it would’ve given us an opportunity to have another set of conversations,” he said. “I hope it won’t be too long before I have a chance to do that.”
Nuclear envoys from the United States, South Korea and Japan held a meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN forum on Friday, where they were expected to discuss the North’s latest missile tests and ways to restart working-level talks between the United States and North Korea.
The Japanese Ministry of Defense said on Friday no immediate impact was seen on Japan’s security after North Korea’s latest launch. Andrei Lankov, director of Korea Risk Group, a think tank, said Pyongyang’s recent missile tests do not mean it was no longer interested in talks with the United States.
“On the contrary, the choice of the short-range missile is a sign that, for the time being, Pyongyang remains serious about making a deal with the US,” he wrote in a report for NK News, a website that monitors North Korea.
North Korea increases pressure with latest missile launches
North Korea increases pressure with latest missile launches
- Kim’s government was assiduously improving military capabilities as well as signalling negotiating demands with the tests
- North Korean state media said Kim oversaw the firing of what it described as a new large-calibre, multiple-launch guided rocket system
US says Mexican cartel drones breached Texas airspace
- Drone breach comes some five months into a US military campaign targeting alleged drug-smuggling boats
- US media also reported that the El Paso airspace closure may have been caused by the US military
HOUSTON: The Trump administration said Wednesday that Mexican cartel drones caused the temporary closure of a Texas airport, but some Democratic lawmakers pushed back, suggesting US military activity was responsible for the disruptive shutdown.
The report of the drone breach comes some five months into a US military campaign targeting alleged drug-smuggling boats, and could provide a pretext for President Donald Trump to follow through on his threats to expand the strikes to land.
Trump has specifically threatened to attack cartels inside Mexico, which said it had “no information” on drones at the border.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said late Tuesday the airspace over the Texas border city of El Paso would be shut to all aircraft for 10 days, citing unspecified national “security reasons,” only to lift the closure after less than 24 hours.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the FAA and the Defense Department “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion,” adding: “The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region.”
A US administration official meanwhile said the breach was by “Mexican cartel drones,” and that US forces “took action to disable the drones,” without providing specifics.
But Democratic Representative Veronica Escobar, whose district includes El Paso, questioned the Trump administration’s explanation, saying it was “not what we in Congress have been told.”
“The information coming from the administration does not add up and it’s not the information that I was able to gather overnight and this morning,” Escobar told journalists.
And top Democratic lawmakers from the House Committee on Transportation suggested the Pentagon may have been responsible for the situation, saying defense policy legislation allows the US military to “act recklessly in the public airspace.”
The lawmakers called for a solution that ensures “the Department of Defense will not jeopardize safety and disrupt the freedom to travel.”
- War against ‘narco-terrorists’ -
US media also reported that the El Paso airspace closure may have been caused by the US military, with CNN saying the shutdown was the result of Pentagon plans to use a counter-drone laser without coordinating with the FAA.
The Pentagon referred questions on the closure to the FAA, which said when it announced the move that “no pilots may operate an aircraft in the areas” covered by the restrictions and warned of potentially “deadly force” if aircraft were deemed a threat.
It updated its guidance Wednesday morning, saying on X that the closure was lifted.
Trump’s administration insists it is effectively at war with “narco-terrorists,” carrying out strikes on alleged traffickers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, while the US president has repeatedly said he plans to expand the strikes to land.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum opposes US military intervention in her country but has so far managed to negotiate a fine diplomatic line with Trump.
She has stepped up extradition of cartel leaders to the United States and reinforced border cooperation amid tariff threats from Trump, for whom curbing illegal migration from Mexico was a key election promise.
Sheinbaum told a news conference Wednesday that she had “no information on the use of drones at the border,” but that her government was investigating.
The United States began carrying out strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in September, a campaign that has killed at least 130 people and destroyed dozens of vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.
US officials have not provided definitive evidence that the vessels are involved in drug trafficking, prompting heated debate about the legality of the operations, which experts say amount to extrajudicial killings.
Trump also ordered a shocking special forces raid in Caracas at the beginning of January to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, whom Washington accused of leading a drug cartel.
