North Korea fires 2 short-range missiles over weekend, say US officials

WASHINGTON - North Korea fired two short-range missiles at the weekend, US officials said on Tuesday, but Washington played down the first such tests under the Biden administration and said the United States was still open to dialogue with Pyongyang.

Two senior officials of the Biden administration told reporters in a briefing call the North Korean activity involved weapons systems at the low end of the spectrum that were not covered by UN Security Council testing bans.

Two other US officials, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters North Korea had fired two short-range missiles, but declined to offer details.

US President Joe Biden, who took office in January, was asked about the tests during a visit to Ohio and told reporters, referring to the North Korean government: “We have learned that nothing much has changed.”

The tests came after North Korea refused to engage with repeated behind-the-scenes US diplomatic overtures by the new administration since mid-February.

The senior US officials said the Biden administration was in the “final stages” of a full review of US policy towards North Korea and would host the national security advisers of allies Japan and South Korea next week to discuss that.

One of the officials said there had been “very little dialogue or interaction” with North Korea since a failed summit between former President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Hanoi in February 2019 at which the United States sought to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

“The outreach from us to North Korea follows over a year without active dialogue with North Korea, despite multiple attempts across two administrations to engage,” the second official said, while adding: “We do not see the activity that took place this weekend as closing that door.”

The Pentagon declined comment on the tests, which were first reported by the Washington Post. North Korea’s mission to the United Nations also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jenny Town, director of 38 North, a US-based website that tracks North Korea, said the North Korean action appeared “pretty mild.”

A top US general last week had warned of the near-term possibility of a far more provocative move: a decision by North Korea to begin flight testing an improved design for its inter-continental ballistic missiles.

Such a move would sharply increase tension between the United States and North Korea.

“My guess is that it has more to do with the joint exercises than anything else,” Town said of the weekend tests. “This kind of testing around the military exercises is pretty common.”

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Joint US-South Korean military exercises this month angered North Korea even though they were scaled back this year to become computer-simulated drills.

A top North Korean diplomat last week said the country would never answer US diplomatic overtures until Washington dropped hostile policies and repeated calls for sanctions relief.

North Korea has maintained and developed its nuclear and ballistic missile programs throughout 2020 in violation of international sanctions, helping fund them with some $300 million (S$404 million) stolen through cyber hacks, according to independent UN sanctions monitors.

Pyongyang has been subject to UN sanctions since 2006 aimed at cutting off funding for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The weekend missile tests came just before a North Korean businessman accused by the United States of laundering money to circumvent US and UN sanctions intended to curb his country’s nuclear weapons program appeared in a US court on Monday after extradition from Malaysia.

North Korea has not tested a nuclear weapon or an ICBM since 2017, but conducted repeated tests of shorter-ranges missiles after the Hanoi summit broke down. The Trump administration also sought to play down such tests.