North Korea fires ballistic missiles a week ahead of Apec leaders’ meeting

A man walks past a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a train station in Seoul today. North Korea fired several ballistic missiles. Photo / Jung Yeon Je, AFP

North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles today, its first such launch in months just a week before world leaders descend on South Korea for a summit.

Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it had “detected several projectiles, believed to be short-range ballistic missiles”.

The missiles were fired around 8.10am local time from an area south of the capital Pyongyang, Seoul’s military said.

They flew for around 350km, Seoul added.

Next week, the Apec leaders including United States President Donald Trump are due to meet in the South Korean city of Gyeongju.

The launch is the nuclear-armed North’s first of its kind since South Korean President Lee Jae Myung took office in June.

Trump has said he hopes to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, possibly this year, following several meetings during his first term.

Pyongyang has said Kim is open to future talks, with caveats that it will not agree to relinquish its nuclear arsenal.

North Korea showed off this month what it called its “most powerful” intercontinental ballistic missile at a military parade attended by top officials from Russia and China.

Pyongyang has said that the strike range of the new Hwasong-20 “knows no bounds”.

Kim oversaw in September a test of a solid-fuel engine used for long-range nuclear missiles.

State media said it was the ninth and final test of the engine, indicating that a full test-fire of the new ICBM could be conducted in coming months.

Blast from the past

North Korea has for years staged test flights of long-range missiles apparently able to reach the continental US.

Pyongyang has also rolled out solid-fuel variants that are easier to mobilise, conceal and launch rapidly compared with liquid-fuel missiles.

The US’ demand that Kim give up his banned weapons has long been a sticking point between the two countries, with Pyongyang under successive rafts of United Nations sanctions over its nuclear and missile programmes.

North Korea has repeatedly stated this year that it has no intention of giving them up.

But Pyongyang has also recently indicated a fresh openness to talks with the US.

Kim met Trump three times for high-profile summits during the US leader’s first term, before talks collapsed in Hanoi in 2019 over what concessions Pyongyang was prepared to make on its atomic weapons.

Kim in September said he had “fond memories” of Trump and was open to another meeting.

“If the US discards its delusional obsession with denuclearisation and, based on recognising reality, truly wishes for peaceful co-existence with us, then there is no reason we cannot meet it,” state media quoted him as saying.

-Agence France-Presse