The timing chosen is too symbolic to be trivial. North Korea fired, Wednesday, May 25, a “suspected intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)”, as part of a series of three missile tests, the South Korean military said, hours after US President Joe Biden left the region.
According to Seoul, at least three missiles were fired from Sunan, in the suburbs of Pyongyang, towards the Sea of Japan at 6 a.m. (11 p.m., Tuesday evening, in Paris), 6:37 a.m., and 6:42 a.m.
« The first ballistic missile [l’ICBM présumé] has a range of about 360 kilometers and an altitude of about 540 kilometers”, said the South Korean general staff in a press release. The second ballistic missile “disappeared at an altitude of 20 km”, and the third projectile – a suspected short-range ballistic missile – traveled about 760 km at an altitude of about 60 km. Japan’s defense ministry said one of the ballistic missiles followed « irregular trajectory ».
“An illegal act”
Pyongyang is pursuing technology that would allow the missiles to be maneuvered after launch, including a “hypersonic glide technology”which would make interception by missile defense systems more difficult.
« North Korea’s successive launch of an alleged intercontinental ballistic missile and short-range ballistic missiles today is an illegal act, in direct violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions »the Seoul government said after a meeting of the National Security Council.
The South Korean military also said that South Korea and the United States carried out a « Earth-to-Earth Missile Firing Exercise »and mobilized fighter jets in response to “alleged North Korean provocations regarding ICBMs and missiles”.
The North Korean regime, under United Nations (UN) sanctions over its weapons programs, has accelerated its missile tests in recent months, blaming the attitude » hostile « the United States. He tested an intercontinental ballistic missile in March for the first time since 2017. And South Korean and American intelligence services suspect him of planning an imminent nuclear test, which would also be his first in five years.
Washington open to dialogue
“The United States condemns the multiple ballistic missile launches by the DPRK”responded a spokesman for the US State Department late Tuesday, using the official name of North Korea. « We call on the DPRK to refrain from further provocations and engage in constructive substantive dialogue »he added.
The US government had said in recent days that it expected a » provocation « from Pyongyang during or just after the stay of Mr. Biden, who completed a tour of South Korea and Japan on Tuesday evening. During his stay in Seoul, the President of the United States and his new South Korean counterpart, according to the latter, evoked an intensification of their joint military exercises, as well as a deployment in the peninsula of fighter planes and missiles. , “to prepare for a nuclear attack”.
An increase in joint maneuvers between Washington and Seoul risks angering Pyongyang, which considers these exercises to be general invasion rehearsals. These maneuvers have been reduced in recent years due to the pandemic, and to allow the predecessors of MM. Biden and Yoon – Donald Trump and Moon Jae-in – to attempt a rapprochement with North Korea.
Shortly before leaving South Korea on Sunday for Japan, Joe Biden had sent a singular message to Kim Jong-un. Asked by a journalist who asked him if he had a message for the North Korean leader, the president replied tersely: » Hello. Period. » A way of making it known that Washington remains open to dialogue with North Korea, even in the absence of reciprocity.
Talks with Pyongyang have stalled since a failed summit in 2019 between Messrs. Kim and Trump, the US President at the time. The North Korean regime ignored all offers of dialogue made by Washington.
The unknown of the health crisis
During his trip to South Korea, Mr. Biden also said that Washington had offered to provide vaccines against Covid-19 to North Korea, but had not « no response received ». Since the beginning of May, more than 3 million people have been infected with » fever « according to the term used by the official media, and 68 have died in North Korea, according to the latest official report, published on Wednesday.
The country, whose 25 million inhabitants are not vaccinated, has completely cut itself off from the world since the start of the pandemic to protect itself from the virus, but the outbreak of contamination with the Omicron variant in neighboring countries has ended up putting failed this strategy.
The way in which the health crisis will influence the military decisions of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, is the great unknown that the Americans, South Koreans and Japanese are trying to clarify.
On May 12, North Korea conducted a ballistic missile test, the same day leader Kim first declared a » emergency « due to the Covid-19 epidemic.