North Korea fires missiles into the sea as US and South Korea conduct military drills

Missiles were launched from an area near the capital Pyongyang, according to South Korea’s military

North Korea fired more than 10 ballistic missiles into the sea on Saturday, South Korea’s military said, as the US and South Korean forces conducted military drills and Donald Trump renewed overtures towards Pyongyang for dialogue.

Japan’s coast guard said it had detected what could be a ballistic missile that fell into the sea. It appeared to have fallen outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, public broadcaster NHK said, citing the military.

The missiles were launched from an area near the capital Pyongyang, about 1.20pm, towards the sea off the country’s east coast, South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said in a statement.

North Korea has test-launched a wide range of ballistic and cruise missiles for more than two decades in a push to develop the means to deliver nuclear weapons, which it is believed to have successfully built.

As a result, Pyongyang has been under multiple UN security council sanctions since 2006, but it remains defiant, despite the severe obstacles they created to its trade, economy and defence.

Seoul and Washington this week launched major military drills, which they say are purely defensive, aimed at testing readiness against military threats from North Korea.

North Korea, a nuclear-armed nation, frequently displays its anger and objections to such exercises, saying they are “dress rehearsals” for armed aggression against it by the allies.

On Thursday, South Korea’s prime minister met Trump in Washington to discuss ways to reopen dialogue with the North, which has been suspended since 2019.

Kim Min-seok said Saturday that the US president thought a meeting with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, would be “good”.

Washington has for decades led efforts to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear programme, but summits, sanctions and diplomatic pressure have had little impact.

In recent months, the Trump administration has pushed to revive high-level talks with Pyongyang, considering a possible summit with Kim Jong-un this year, potentially during Trump’s April visit to Beijing.

Seoul’s Kim, who met Trump in Washington, said the US president told him: “Meeting (Kim Jong-un) would be good. It’s really good to meet. But it could happen when we go to China this time, or it might not, or it could even be later, couldn’t it?”

Kim told reporters that he and Trump agreed that if a meeting with Kim Jong-un “happens soon, or around the time of the China visit, that would in itself be meaningful”.

“But even if not, what matters in essence is that dialogue or contact takes place, and (Trump) appears firm on that point,” Kim added.

Trump said during a trip to Asia in October that he was “100%” open to meeting with Kim Jong-un, a remark that went unanswered by the North.

After largely ignoring those overtures for months, Kim Jong-un recently said the two nations could “get along” if Washington accepted Pyongyang’s nuclear status.

North Korea also recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with South Korea, describing its latest peace efforts as a “clumsy, deceptive farce”.

*With Reuters and Agence France-Presse