The UN Security Council will meet Thursday behind closed doors at the request of the United Kingdom, France and Germany to discuss recent North Korean ballistic missile launches, diplomats said.
North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles, South Korea’s military said Wednesday, the second such test in less than week. UN Security Council resolutions prohibit Pyongyang from ballistic missile tests.
North Korea’s state media agency, KCNA, said Thursday that leader Kim Jong Un supervised the test of a “newly-developed large-caliber multiple launch guided rocket system” the day before. It reported the system would “play a main role in ground military operations” and create “inescapable distress to the forces becoming a fat target of the weapon.”
The report contradicted the South’s military assessment that the North tested two short-range ballistic missiles that flew about 250 kilometers (155 miles) at a height of 30 kilometers.
Earlier tests
Wednesday’s test followed similar ones six days earlier that North Korea said were meant as a “solemn warning” to South Korea over its high-tech defense purchases and planned joint military exercises with US troops in August.
The test missile launches threaten to derail US-North Korea attempts to revive working-level talks on denuclearization following the June 30 meeting between US President Donald Trump and the North’s leader at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas. It was the pair’s third meeting in less than a year.
Trump and Kim had agreed at the DMZ to resume nuclear diplomacy in coming weeks, but that effort appears to have stalled.
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‘Handshake for peace’ – Trump crosses into North Korea
Third Kim-Trump meeting
It was the third meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un in just over a year. The first Trump-Kim summit took place in Singapore in June last year. A meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, was held in February 2019. Both meetings failed to provide a clear roadmap for North Korea’s denuclearization.
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‘Handshake for peace’ – Trump crosses into North Korea
Making history
Trump made history on June 30 with his latest encounter with Kim. He’s the first sitting US president to visit the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that divides South and North Korea. Trump briefly crossed into North Korea as he shook hands with Kim. He said he was “proud to step over the line.”
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‘Handshake for peace’ – Trump crosses into North Korea
Watching over the North
Prior to his meeting with Kim, Trump flew to the DMZ with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. The US president met with South Korean and American troops as he watched over North Korea from a military post in the DMZ. US presidents in the past have visited American troops on the South Korean side but not set foot in the DMZ.
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‘Handshake for peace’ – Trump crosses into North Korea
‘Great friendship’
From calling Kim Jong Un “little rocket man” to someone he has a “certain chemistry” with, Trump has come a long way in his dealing with North Korea. On June 30, he once again emphasized his personal ties with the North Korean dictator. Kim, too, hailed his “wonderful” relationship with Trump, saying the latest meeting would enable nuclear talks.
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‘Handshake for peace’ – Trump crosses into North Korea
‘In no rush’
Washington and Pyongyang blame each other for the impasse over nuclear talks, but Trump is hopeful for a breakthrough. Although his previous two meetings with the North Korean leader didn’t yield any result, Trump said he was “in no rush” to defuse tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
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‘Handshake for peace’ – Trump crosses into North Korea
Regime survival
Experts have warned that North Korea may never agree to fully give up its nuclear ambitions, which they say Pyongyang views as vital for regime survival. In March, new satellite imagery suggested that North Korea started rebuilding a rocket launch site before Kim and Trump’s Vietnam summit in Feruary. The site had been dismantled last year as part of Kim’s denuclearization pledge.
Author: Shamil Shams
North Korea has called for an end to joint US-South Korean military exercises as a precondition for denuclearization talks.
The Pentagon said Wednesday the annual planned joint US-South Korea drills will go ahead.
The Trump administration has sought to downplay the North’s missile launches, saying they do not violate an agreement between the two sides committing the North to not conduct nuclear or intercontinental ballistic missile tests.
cw/se (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)
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