Kim Jong Un said North Korea\u2019s latest missile tests were intended as a warning against ongoing US-South Korea military exercises, while President Donald Trump\u2019s new defense chief defended the training as necessary to maintain readiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
North Korean state media said Wednesday that Kim personally oversaw what allied military officials said was a pair of short-range ballistic missile launches a day earlier — the fourth such volley in two weeks. \u201cThe demonstration fire clearly verified the reliability, security and actual war capacity of the new-type tactical guided weapon system,\u201d the official Korean Central News Agency said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
North Korea has taken escalating steps in recent weeks to show its frustration with the US\u2019s refusal to meet its demands in nuclear talks. The regime also has specifically accused Trump of breaking a pledge during a June 30 meeting to suspend all joint drills the latest of which started Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cKim 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 U.S. and South Korean authorities,\u201d KCNA reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The so-called Alliance 19-2 exercises were instituted after Trump unilaterally agreed to Kim\u2019s request last year to suspend larger, live-fire Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills that North Korea long denounced as an effort to prepare for an invasion. Trump administration officials say the current \u201ccommand post\u201d exercises are largely computer-driven and don\u2019t constitute a breach of the president\u2019s commitments to Kim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
US Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters Tuesday while en route to Tokyo that the allies were \u201cstill abiding\u201d by the adjustments made after Trump and Kim\u2019s historic first meeting in Singapore last year. \u201cAt the same time, we need to maintain our readiness and making sure that we\u2019re prepared,\u201d said Esper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kim Dong-yub, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University\u2019s Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said the regime appeared to be trying to balance foreign and domestic pressures. \u201cExternally, it\u2019s trying not to break the platform of dialogue,\u201d he said, adding that Kim must also shield \u201chimself from criticism from the North Korean people who feel insecure over national security concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Esper said he would also press allies Japan and South Korea to keep their escalating trade feud from affecting cooperation. Seoul has warned that the dispute, rooted in disagreements over Japan\u2019s 1910-45 colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula, could cause it to reconsider an intelligence-sharing pact with Tokyo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kim Jong Un said North Korea\u2019s latest missile tests were intended as a warning against ongoing US-South Korea military exercises, while President Donald Trump\u2019s new defense chief defended the training as necessary to maintain readiness. North Korean state media said Wednesday that Kim personally oversaw what allied military officials said was a pair of short-range […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67714,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67713","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\/67713","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=67713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67715,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67713\/revisions\/67715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}