N Korea says it fired anti-aircraft missile, 4th recent test

By HYUNG-JIN KIM

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Friday it test-fired a caller anti-aircraft missile, the 4th weapons motorboat successful caller weeks that experts accidental is portion of a strategy to triumph alleviation from sanctions and different concessions.

South Korea, Japan and the United States typically publically corroborate North Korean ballistic rocket launches, which are banned by U.N. resolutions, soon aft they occur. But they did not bash truthful for Thursday’s, indicating the limb tested whitethorn person been a antithetic kind. Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Friday that South Korean and U.S. quality authorities monitored moves by North Korea but didn’t elaborate.

Three weeks ago, North Korea resumed rocket tests aft a six-month lull. As it has sometimes done before, the North combined the amusement of unit with a much conciliatory gesture, offering earlier this week to reactivate hotlines that North and South Korea usage to acceptable up meetings, put borderline crossings and debar accidental clashes.

Diplomacy aimed astatine getting the North to wantonness its atomic arsenal successful instrumentality for economical and governmental rewards has mostly been deadlocked since aboriginal 2019. That has near North Korea nether crippling U.S.-led economical sanctions, astatine a clip erstwhile its fragile system is suffering monolithic setbacks owed to the coronavirus pandemic. The North’s latest moves look aimed astatine pressuring South Korea, which wants to amended strained ties connected the peninsula, to transportation the U.S. to unbend the sanctions.

On Friday, the Korean Central News Agency said the anti-aircraft rocket trial was “of precise applicable value successful studying and processing assorted prospective anti-aircraft rocket system.”

Kim Dong-yub, a prof astatine the University of North Korean Studies successful Seoul, said the motorboat appears to beryllium the primitive signifier of a trial to make a rocket designed to sprout down incoming force missiles and aircraft. He said the rocket resembles the Russian-made S-400 aerial defence system, which helium said has a maximum scope of 400 kilometers (250 miles) and is reportedly susceptible of intercepting stealth jets.

Earlier this week, successful his government’s latest mixed signal, North Korea person Kim Jong Un expressed his willingness to reconstruct the connection hotlines with South Korea successful the coming days, but helium besides shrugged disconnected U.S. offers for dialog arsenic a “cunning” concealment of its hostility against the North. He besides insisted that South Korea wantonness its “double-dealing attitude” if it wants to spot an betterment successful Korean relations. His comments mostly echoed demands from his almighty sister, who has taken the pb successful the North’s ongoing unit campaign.

South Korea has said it would hole for the restoration of the cross-border telephone and fax lines, which person been mostly dormant for much than a year. But arsenic of Friday afternoon, North Korea remained unresponsive to South Korea’s effort to speech messages done the channels, according to Seoul’s Unifications Ministry.

During the Armed Forces Day ceremonial connected Friday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in vowed to repel immoderate effort to endanger his people’s lives and would strive to execute lasting peace. But helium didn’t notation North Korea’s caller tests successful a imaginable effort to support live the anticipation of talks betwixt the Koreas.

White House property caput Jen Psaki said Friday that U.S. officials were inactive assessing the astir caller rocket launch. She added that Biden medication officials person made efforts to scope retired to the North Koreans to spur talks but person not received a effect from the regime.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters Thursday that Washington “certainly supports” inter-Korean dialog successful principle. But helium said the U.S. was acrophobic astir North Korea’s caller launches, which helium noted were successful usurpation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and created “greater prospects for instability and insecurity.”

U.N. resolutions prohibition immoderate ballistic enactment by North Korea.

Among the weapons North Korea tested successful September were a caller hypersonic missile, a recently developed cruise rocket and a ballistic rocket launched from a train. South Korea’s subject assessed the hypersonic rocket to beryllium astatine an aboriginal signifier of development, but experts accidental the different weapons launched displayed the North’s quality to onslaught targets successful South Korea and Japan, cardinal U.S. allies that big American troops. Earlier this week, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said its committedness to the defence of South Korea and Japan “remains ironclad.”

North Korea has not tested a long-range rocket susceptible of reaching the U.S. mainland for astir 4 years — what experts spot arsenic an denotation it is cautiously calibrating its provocations to support live its chances for diplomacy.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Lee successful Washington contributed to this report.