WASHINGTON/SEOUL: North Korea fired two short-range missiles at the weekend, US and South Korean officials said, but Washington played down the first such tests under President Joe Biden and said it was still open to dialogue with Pyongyang.
The North Korean tests involved weapons systems at the low end of the spectrum that were not covered by UN Security Council testing bans, two senior officials of the Biden administration told a briefing call on Tuesday.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said two cruise missiles were fired off North Korea’s west coast town of Onchon on Sunday morning.
South Korea had detected signs a test was imminent and was monitoring it in real time, a JCS official told reporters on Wednesday. The JCS reports North Korea’s testing of advanced weapons such as nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles nearly in real time but not some tests of lower grade, shorter range weapons.
The launch marks North Korea’s first publicly known weapons test since Biden took office in January.
But Biden downplayed the test, saying “nothing much has changed”, while one senior US official said it was “normal” testing and warned against “hyping” it.
“No, according to the Defence Department it’s business as usual. There’s no new wrinkle in what they did,” Biden told reporters upon his return from a visit to Ohio, when asked if the test was a provocation.
The Pentagon declined to comment on the test, which was first reported by the Washington Post. — Reuters
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