North Korea\u2019s state media said on Sunday that leader Kim Jong Un had overseen a rocket and tactical guided weapons test, after the drill Saturday had raised concerns Pyongyang was escalating provocations with US nuclear negotiations deadlocked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The North last carried out a missile \ntest in November 2017, before a rapid diplomatic rapprochement saw \ntensions ease on the peninsula and a series of summits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A return \nto missile launches would be likely to infuriate US President Donald \nTrump, but the North\u2019s official KCNA news agency shied away from the \nterm in its report, saying Kim had ordered a \u201cstrike drill\u201d involving \n\u201clong-range multiple rocket launchers\u201d which are not targeted by UN \nsanctions resolutions and unspecified \u201ctactical guided weapons\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\n United States and North Korea have been at loggerheads since the \ncollapse of a Trump-Kim summit in February, when the two sides clashed \nover sanctions and the extent of Pyongyang\u2019s concessions on its atomic \narsenal.During Saturday\u2019s drill Kim urged his troops to remember \u201cthe \niron truth that genuine peace and security are ensured and guaranteed \nonly by powerful strength\u201d, KCNA said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The state-run Rodong \nSinmun newspaper on Sunday carried 16 photos of the weapons test on its \nfront page, including a picture of a grim-looking Kim clutching his \nbinoculars in an observation post as well as several images of \nprojectiles shooting skywards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump proclaimed that the North \nKorean nuclear threat was over after the two sides\u2019 historic first \nsummit in Singapore in June, when Kim pledged to work towards \u201ccomplete \ndenuclearisation of the Korean peninsula\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two have since \ndisagreed over what that means, but Trump has insisted the leaders \nremain close even after their follow-up meeting in Vietnam broke up \nwithout a deal or even a joint statement, and that Kim would maintain \nhis moratorium on long-range missile and nuclear tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The \nSaturday drill followed last month\u2019s test-firing of very short-range \ntactical weapons, and came days after a senior North Korean diplomat \nchastised US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for making \u201cfoolish and \ndangerous\u201d comments during nuclear talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Ankit Panda of the \nFederation of American Scientists stressed that the projectile launch \n\u201cdoes not violate Kim Jong Un\u2019s self-imposed missile-testing \nmoratorium\u201d, which \u201conly applied to intercontinental-range ballistic \nmissiles\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even so, a statement from Seoul\u2019s presidential Blue \nHouse said it was \u201cgreatly concerned,\u201d calling it a violation of a \nmilitary agreement signed by both Koreas last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Friday, \nSouth Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said Pyongyang should show \n\u201cvisible, concrete and substantial\u201d denuclearisation action if it wants \nsanctions relief the issue at the centre of the Hanoi debacle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier\n this week, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui warned \nWashington of an \u201cunwanted outcome\u201d if it did not adjust its stance on \neconomic sanctions.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
North Korea\u2019s state media said on Sunday that leader Kim Jong Un had overseen a rocket and tactical guided weapons test, after the drill Saturday had raised concerns Pyongyang was escalating provocations with US nuclear negotiations deadlocked. The North last carried out a missile test in November 2017, before a rapid diplomatic rapprochement saw tensions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60657,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60656"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60658,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60656\/revisions\/60658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}