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Kim sends missile ‘warning’ to S.Korea, US as tensions rise
SEOUL, Aug 7, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un says the
country’s latest missile launches were a warning to Washington and Seoul over
their joint war games, state news agency KCNA reported on Wednesday, as
tensions rise on the Korean peninsula.
The latest launch by the nuclear-armed North came after the South Korean
and US militaries began mainly computer-simulated joint exercises on Monday
to test Seoul’s ability to take operational control in wartime.
Those drills are taking place despite Pyongyang’s warnings that the
exercises would jeopardise nuclear negotiations between the United States and
North Korea.
KCNA said Kim had watched the launches early Tuesday, which verified the
“war capacity” of the “new-type tactical guided missiles”.
With the launches carried out satisfactorily, “Kim Jong Un noted that the
said military action would be an occasion to send an adequate warning to the
joint military drill now underway by the US and South Korean authorities,”
KCNA said.
Pyongyang on Tuesday fired two projectiles that “are assumed to be short-
range ballistic missiles” into the sea, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff
said earlier.
The latest weapons tests were the fourth pair of projectiles fired in less
than two weeks, and the North has threatened more.
US President Donald Trump last week downplayed the North’s launches, saying
Kim would not want to “disappoint” him.
Trump and Kim held a historic summit in Singapore last year, where the
North made a vague pledge on denuclearisation.
A second summit in Hanoi this February broke up amid disagreements over
sanctions relief and what Pyongyang might be willing to give up in return.
The two agreed to resume nuclear talks during their impromptu June meeting
in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula, but working-level
dialogue has yet to begin.
Analysts say the military manoeuvres on both sides could see discussions
pushed back until the autumn, and Pyongyang signalled Tuesday that it was in
no mood to talk.
It called the drills a “flagrant violation” of the diplomatic process
between Pyongyang, Washington and Seoul.
Pyongyang has always been infuriated by military exercises between the
South and US, seeing them as rehearsals for invasion, but in the past it has
tended to avoid carrying out missile tests while the war games were taking
place.
After the Singapore summit, Trump made a shock announcement halting joint
drills, adopting Pyongyang’s own description of them as “provocative”.
War games known as Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) scheduled for August last
year were subsequently suspended and the allies’ biggest annual drills, Foal
Eagle and Key Resolve, were replaced with a shorter “Dong Maeng” or
“Alliance” exercise in March.
US National Security Advisor John Bolton on Tuesday said the latest drills
are “consistent with the partnership we have with South Korea.
“North Korea has continued its exercises unabated. So they don’t really
have a lot to complain about,” he told the “Fox and Friends” television show.
BSS/AFP/GMR/0902 hrs