North Korea fires two suspected cruise missiles, the fifth test in a month

North Korea fired two suspected cruise missiles on Tuesday, Seoul announced, raising the number of military tests carried out in a month to five, at a time when Pyongyang ignores US offers of dialogue.

The last time North Korea conducted so many weapons tests in one month was in 2019, after the failure of high-level negotiations between former US President Donald Trump and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

LOOK: Why North Korea has launched so many missiles in the last month

“North Korea fired two suspected cruise missiles.” the South Korean military chiefs of staff said in a statement, without elaborating.

Cruise missiles are not prohibited under the current UN sanctions regime, and South Korea does not routinely report each of these tests in real time, as it does for ballistic missiles.

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The last record of a cruise missile test launched by Pyongyang dates back to September 2021.

This series of shots follows a speech delivered in December by Kim Jong Un in which he pledged to modernize his arsenal.

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, imposed new sanctions in early January, a measure that Pyongyang called a “provocation” and to which he could respond with the resumption of long-range nuclear and ballistic tests.

US and South Korean intelligence agencies are currently analyzing the shot.

Pyongyang rejects Washington’s proposals for dialogue and for several weeks has carried out a series of weapons tests to make a show of force.

Try the US reaction

This latest essay seems like an open challenge to Biden’s proposal to negotiate “without preconditions”, an offer that has not generated any progress in the last year.

“North Korea seems to want to test Washington’s reaction and at the same time show its presence in the international concert,” Yang Moo-jin, an academic at the University of North Korean Studies, told AFP.

By firing a cruise missile, Pyongyang is mocking the United States, without violating UN sanctions, the expert added.

These rehearsals come at a complex time in the region: China, the only ally of the North Korean regime, hosts the Winter Olympics in February and South Korea holds presidential elections in March.

For Ahn Chan-il, a North Korean defector turned investigator, these tests may be a way to put pressure on China.

“The Beijing Olympics cannot be a festival of peace without peace on the Korean Peninsula,” he said.

“And peace on the Korean Peninsula depends on North Korea,” he said.

Pyongyang, whose economic problems have worsened with the total closure of its borders to prevent the spread of the covid-19 pandemic, began to resume trade with its Chinese neighbor in early January.

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