North Korea has yet to respond to President Trump’s repeated offers to meet its leader, Kim Jong-un. Instead, it fired missiles off its west coat, the country’s state media reported on Wednesday.
The weapons test, conducted on Tuesday, took place a day before Mr. Trump was scheduled to arrive in South Korea. On Wednesday, he is set to attend an Asia-Pacific economic forum in the city of Gyeongju.
During the test, sea-to-surface strategic cruise missiles flew more than two hours before striking their target, according to North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency.
The report indicated that the missiles were designed to carry nuclear warheads. Pak Jong-chon, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, said that the test was an important success.
“It is our responsible mission and duty to ceaselessly toughen the nuclear combat posture,” Mr. Pak said.
The launch was North Korea’s second missile test in a week. Last Wednesday, it fired what it called two hypersonic missiles from Pyongyang, its capital city, to a target on a plateau in the northeast of the country. The South Korean military identified them as short-range ballistic missiles.
Although North Korea has conducted various missile tests in recent years, the latest test-launch drew attention in part because of its timing.
While on his first trip to Asia since his return to the White House, Mr. Trump has repeatedly expressed his eagerness to have a face-to-face meeting with Mr. Kim again. The two leaders met three times during Mr. Trump’s first term but their direct diplomacy did not produce a deal on rolling back North Korea’s nuclear weapons program or easing international sanctions placed on the country.
“I’d love to meet with him if he’d like to meet,” Mr. Trump said on Monday, when asked if he would meet Mr. Kim. “If he wants to meet, I’ll be in South Korea.”
The last time the two men met, it took a little more than 30 hours for their governments to arrange a meeting on the border between North and South Korea. But this time, North Korea has not responded. It has said it will not reopen dialogue with Washington unless it is accepted as a nuclear weapons power.
In the past couple of years, North Korea has drawn closer to Russia. It has supplied Russia with weapons and troops to aid its war against Ukraine. Moscow has reciprocated by providing North Korea with food, oil, weapons technologies and a mutual defense treaty. The deepening ties between North Korea and Russia have given Mr. Kim more diplomatic leverage in dealing with Washington.
As Mr. Trump prepared to visit South Korea, Mr. Kim sent his foreign minister, Choe Son-hui, to Moscow. After she met with her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, on Monday, the two nations issued a press statement reaffirming “their will to accelerate the multifaceted development of the bilateral relations.”
Choe Sang-Hun is the lead reporter for The Times in Seoul, covering South and North Korea.
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