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 By Sebastian SMITH with Sunghee HWANG in Seoul Washington (AFP) Oct 3, 2019
US President Donald Trump on Thursday brushed off North Korea's test of a sea-launched ballistic missile, saying that planned nuclear talks with Pyongyang will go ahead. "They want to talk and we'll be talking to them," Trump told reporters at the White House in his first public reaction to North Korea's claim to have entered a "new phase" with the test of a submarine-launched missile. "We'll see," Trump added, when asked if the test had gone too far for him. The launch was by far the most significant since Pyongyang first began a dialogue with Washington in 2018 over pressure to give up its nuclear weapons. Analysts said the new capability, if confirmed, marks a significant step in boosting that program. "We assess that it was a short- to medium-range ballistic missile. And I would say that we have no indication that it was launched from a submarine but rather a sea-based platform," a US military spokesman, Colonel Pat Ryder, told reporters. Trump has said he sees no problem with a string of short range rocket tests conducted previously by North Korea, while insisting his personal ties with the North's leader Kim Jong Un remain good. But a proven submarine-based missile capability would take the North's arsenal to a new level, allowing deployment far beyond the Korean peninsula and a second-strike capability in the event of an attack on its military bases. The launch came with working-level talks between Pyongyang and Washington slated to resume later this week. A team of North Korean negotiators flew into Stockholm Thursday ahead of the talks. - Fired from underwater - The United Nations Security Council is expected to hold closed-door talks early next week on the latest test, diplomats said. The talks were requested by Britain, France and Germany, as the European powers push for the world body to keep up pressure on Pyongyang which is under heavy US and UN sanctions over its weapons program. North Korea is banned from ballistic missile launches by Security Council resolutions. Photos carried by Pyongyang's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed a black and white missile emerging from the water and appearing to shoot into the sky. The images also showed a small towing vessel next to the missile, which analysts said indicates the test was conducted from a submersible barge rather than an actual submarine, and that the system was in its early stages. "The new-type ballistic missile was fired in vertical mode" in the waters off Wonsan Bay, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, identifying the weapon as a Pukguksong-3 and saying it "ushered in a new phase in containing the outside forces' threat." Ankit Panda of the Federation of American Scientists called it Pyongyang's longest-range-capable solid-fuel missile. Wednesday's launch was "unambiguously the first nuclear-capable missile test since November 2017," Panda said. The North carried out a successful test of the solid-fuel Pukguksong-1, also known as KN-11, in August 2016, which flew around 300 miles (482 kilometers). In July, North Korean state media had published pictures of Kim inspecting a new type of submarine that also showed a poster of the Pukguksong-3 on a wall, fueling concerns Pyongyang was pushing ahead with an SLBM program. Tokyo said a part of Wednesday's missile landed in waters within Japan's exclusive economic zone -- a 125-mile band around Japanese territory. US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper spoke to his Japanese counterpart to discuss the launch, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman told a press briefing. "They both agreed that the North Korea tests are unnecessarily provocative and do not set the stage for diplomacy and that North Korea should cease these tests," Hoffman said. - Kim absent - North Korea frequently couples diplomatic overtures with military moves as a way of maintaining pressure on negotiating partners, analysts say, and may believe this weapons system gives it added leverage. Pyongyang tested what it called a "super-large" rocket launcher last month just hours after the North said it was willing to resume working-level talks with Washington. Kim Dong-yub, a researcher at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, noted Kim's absence at Wednesday's launch -- a rarity as the North Korean leader has been present at all recent weapons tests. "It's likely not unrelated to the talks between Pyongyang and Washington currently under way," he said, adding that Kim was trying to carry out weapons modernization without jeopardizing dialogue with the US. Negotiations have been deadlocked since a second summit between Kim and Trump in February ended without a deal. The two agreed to restart dialogue during an impromptu meeting at the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas in June, but those talks have yet to materialize.
North Korean negotiators head to Stockholm: Yonhap Kim Myong Gil departed Beijing on a flight to Stockholm with three other North Korean officials after arriving in the Chinese capital from Pyongyang earlier in the day, Yonhap added. "(We) are heading to working-level negotiations with the US," Kim Myong Gil told reporters in Beijing, according to the agency. "As the US side sent a new signal, I bear high expectations and optimism, and I am also optimistic about the results." The talks are planned to begin later this week, but the venue has not yet been confirmed by either side. In a bid to break the deadlock over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons, US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had agreed to restart dialogue during an impromptu meeting in June. The North Korean team's reported departure came a day after Pyongyang test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile, by far the most provocative such launch since it started a dialogue with Washington in 2018. North Korea frequently combines diplomatic outreach and military muscle-flexing as a way of maintaining pressure on the other side, analysts say, and may believe such moves give it added leverage. Despite the gridlock, however, North Korea has continued to praise Trump, describing him as "bold" and "wise". Relations have also thawed after the president fired his hawkish national security adviser John Bolton last month, a move hailed by Pyongyang. Trump had blamed Bolton for comments on North Korea that "set us back very badly", and analysts have said that his ouster may have helped bring North Korea back to the table. A deal with Pyongyang is one of Trump's top foreign policy initiatives, and he has held two summits with Kim in a bid to denuclearise the Korean peninsula. And despite the collapse of the second summit in Hanoi earlier this year and the subsequent deadlock, Trump has continued to express optimism about a deal, playing up what he describes as a strong personal relationship with Kim.
Why Submarines for North Korea's Missiles Sydney, Australia (SPX) Oct 02, 2019 The recent test launch of a North Korean Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) could be framed as just another event in a recent surge of new weapons test by the state. North Korea has conducted a flurry of missile launches in recent months, marking the debut of some new weapons that could possibly avoid Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) systems in nearby states. But all of these earlier tests were of land-based systems. This is not the first time that North Korea has tested a SLBM and they have ... read more
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