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North Korea Resumes Missile Launches as Talks With U.S. Bog Down

North Korea launched at least two short-range missiles into the sea east of the Korean Peninsula, stepping up pressure on the U.S.

North Korea Resumes Missile Launches as Talks With U.S. Bog Down
North Korean soldiers on the North Korean side of the border. (Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- North Korea launched at least two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea off its eastern coast, signaling new strains with the U.S. just weeks after President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un met and agreed to restart talks.

South Korean officials said North Korea launched a new type of missile that traveled as far as 690 kilometers (430 miles) into the sea between the peninsula and Japan starting around 5:30 a.m. local time. The weapons, which officials said flew as high as 50 kilometers into the atmosphere, was fired from the coastal area of Wonsan just hours after U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton departed Seoul.

North Korea Resumes Missile Launches as Talks With U.S. Bog Down

Kim Jong Un was known to be in the area at the time of the launch, Kim Joon-rak, a spokesman for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a briefing Thursday, indicating that the North Korean leader may have personally overseen the operation. Kim Jong Un was on site for similar tests in May that broke a 17-month lull in such provocations.

While the weapons launched Thursday could threaten all of South Korea and probably violate United Nations sanctions, Trump has said he doesn’t consider them a breach of Kim’s pledge to freeze nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests. The launch was part of a series of steps by Kim that appeared intended to communicate frustration with the U.S. in the wake of his historic June 30 meeting with Trump at the Demilitarized Zone.

North Korea Resumes Missile Launches as Talks With U.S. Bog Down

“For now, he’s avoiding breaking his moratorium on testing missiles that can strike the United States -- intermediate- and intercontinental-range missiles,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, in California. “But he has made clear that such tests may resume if a deal is not struck by the end of the year.”

In Washington, a senior administration official said that the White House was aware of the launches, but provided no further comment.

Investors shrugged off the news, with the yen -- a barometer of risk aversion -- little changed for most of the Tokyo morning. South Korea’s Kospi index of equities dropped 0.4% at the close. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news briefing in Tokyo that the missiles didn’t land in the country’s exclusive economic zone and posed no imminent threat to Japan.

Almost a month after Trump and Kim announced working-level talks, negotiating teams have yet to meet and discuss the leaders’ agreement last year to “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” The two sides have been divided over the scale disarmament steps offered by Kim and the pace of sanctions relief proposed by the U.S.

North Korea Resumes Missile Launches as Talks With U.S. Bog Down

U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo might also miss a chance to meet his North Korean counterpart at Association of Southeast Asian Nations gatherings in Bangkok next week. Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho won’t attend the meeting, the Yonhap News Agency reported Thursday, citing an unidentified person close to the matter.

In recent days, North Korea has complained about upcoming U.S.-South Korean military exercises and warned that it could reconsider its freeze on more significant weapons tests. State media published reports this week of Kim inspecting a submarine that will be deployed in waters between the peninsula and Japan, a vessel that weapons analysts said appeared large enough to carry ballistic missiles.

The missiles tested in May were easier to hide, harder to strike down and capable of hitting all of South Korea. Such exercises, along with the submarine report, demonstrate Kim’s development of weapons systems that can more effectively launch attacks against U.S. allies South Korea and Japan without being intercepted.

North Korea Resumes Missile Launches as Talks With U.S. Bog Down

“If these smaller missiles are tipped with nuclear warheads or chemical or biological weapons, they still threaten South Korea as well as U.S. troops and American citizens in the South,” said Duyeon Kim an adjunct senior fellow in Seoul for the Center for a New American Security. “They can confound U.S. and South Korean missile defenses.”

The weapons fired Thursday appeared to be a new type of short-range ballistic missile, the office of South Korean President Moon Jae-in said. The first missile flew 430 kilometers while the second flew 690 kilometers.

The test came a few hours after Bolton -- who advocated a preemptive strike on North Korea before joining the administration last year -- wrapped up a visit to Japan and South Korea. U.S. nuclear envoy Stephen Biegun spoke by phone with his counterpart in Seoul, Lee Do-hoon, after the launch, South Korea’s foreign ministry said.

North Korea Resumes Missile Launches as Talks With U.S. Bog Down

After a February summit between the two broke down in Hanoi without a deal, Kim and Trump staged their historic June meeting on the border, agreeing to restart working-level talks. During the meeting, Trump became the first American leader to set foot in North Korea while in office.

“We want to get it right,” Trump said of nuclear talks at the time. “We’re not looking for speed. We want to get it right.”

--With assistance from Justin Sink, Sarah Wells and Emi Nobuhiro.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jihye Lee in Seoul at jlee2352@bloomberg.net;John Harney in Washington at jharney2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, ;Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Jon Herskovitz

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