North Korea launched two short-range missiles over the weekend, U.S. officials said March 23, in the country’s first public provocation of Biden. Pictured are two short-range missiles launched by North Korea on July 25, 2019.
North Korea launched two short-range missiles on Sunday in Pyongyang’s first public provocation of the Biden Administration, U.S. officials said on Tuesday (March 23). Officials said the U.S. remains open to dialogue with Pyongyang.
According to Reuters, two senior Biden administration officials told the media in a telephone briefing that North Korea’s current test-launch, which used a low-end weapons system, was not covered by the U.N. Security Council’s test ban.
The media outlet noted that the Biden administration has made several attempts to communicate with North Korea behind the scenes since mid-February, but has been rebuffed by North Korea, which subsequently led to the test-fire operation.
Senior U.S. officials said the Biden administration is in the “final stages” of a comprehensive review of North Korea policy and will discuss the issue when it hosts national security advisers from Japan and South Korea next week.
Officials added that Washington does not believe the activities that took place this weekend will close the door on U.S. communications with North Korea.
The Washington Post was the first to report on the current North Korean action, citing sources familiar with the matter, saying the North’s harsh criticism of the joint U.S.-South Korea effort and test firing of multiple short-range missiles was seen as Kim Jong Un’s first public provocation of Biden. However, the U.S. Department of Defense declined to respond to the matter, and the North Korean delegation to the United Nations did not immediately respond to the matter.
Jenny Town, director of 38 North, a U.S. think tank that specializes in North Korea, said North Korea’s actions appear to be “fairly benign. She noted that North Korea’s missile test launch was linked to joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises, presumably in response to them.
Town said, “These kinds of tests around military exercises are common.”
The joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises took place this month, and despite scaling back this year’s exercises into computer simulations, they nevertheless drew North Korea’s ire.
North Korea has not tested a nuclear weapon or intercontinental ballistic missile since 2017, but it has conducted multiple short-range missile tests after the broken Hanoi summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un.
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