{"id":210583,"date":"2019-04-18T23:36:27","date_gmt":"2019-04-19T03:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=210583"},"modified":"2019-04-18T23:36:27","modified_gmt":"2019-04-19T03:36:27","slug":"nkorea-says-it-tested-new-weapon-wants-pompeo-out-of-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/04\/18\/nkorea-says-it-tested-new-weapon-wants-pompeo-out-of-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"NKorea says it tested new weapon, wants Pompeo out of talks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Separately, the\u00a0North\u00a0Korean Foreign Ministry accused Pompeo of playing down the significance of comments by leader Kim Jong Un, who said last week that Washington has until the end of the year to offer mutually acceptable terms for an agreement to salvage the high-stakes nuclear diplomacy. Both the demand for Pompeo’s removal from the talks and the weapon test point to\u00a0North\u00a0Korea’s displeasure with the deadlocked negotiations. (File Photo:<\/a> @SecPompeo\/Twitter<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SEOUL,\u00a0Korea, Republic Of —\u00a0North\u00a0Korea\u00a0said Thursday that it had test-fired a new type of \u201ctactical guided weapon,\u201d its first such test in nearly half a year, and demanded that Washington remove Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from nuclear negotiations.<\/p>\n

The test, which didn’t appear to be of a banned mid- or long-range ballistic missile that could scuttle negotiations, allows\u00a0North\u00a0Korea\u00a0to show its people it is pushing ahead with weapons development while also reassuring domestic military officials worried that diplomacy with Washington signals weakness.<\/p>\n

Separately, the\u00a0North\u00a0Korean Foreign Ministry accused Pompeo of playing down the significance of comments by leader Kim Jong Un, who said last week that Washington has until the end of the year to offer mutually acceptable terms for an agreement to salvage the high-stakes nuclear diplomacy. Both the demand for Pompeo’s removal from the talks and the weapon test point to\u00a0North\u00a0Korea’s displeasure with the deadlocked negotiations.<\/p>\n

In a statement issued under the name of Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the American Affairs Department at the Foreign Ministry,\u00a0North\u00a0Korea\u00a0accused Pompeo of \u201ctalking nonsense\u201d and misrepresenting Kim’s comments.<\/p>\n

During a speech at Texas A&M on Monday, Pompeo said Kim promised to denuclearize during his first summit with President Donald Trump and that U.S. officials were working with the\u00a0North\u00a0Koreans to \u201cchart a path forward so we can get there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe (Kim) said he wanted it done by the end of the year,\u201d Pompeo said. \u201cI’d love to see that done sooner.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0North\u00a0Korean statement said Pompeo was \u201cmisrepresenting the meaning of our requirement\u201d for the negotiations to be finalized by the year’s end, and referred to his \u201ctalented skill of fabricating stories.\u201d It said Pompeo’s continued participation in the negotiations would ensure that the talks become \u201centangled\u201d and called for a different counterpart who is \u201cmore careful and mature in communicating with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Washington, the State Department said in a short statement that \u201cWe are aware of the report. The United States remains ready to engage\u00a0North\u00a0Korea\u00a0in a constructive negotiation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a speech at his rubber-stamp parliament last week, Kim said he is open to a third summit with Trump, but only if the United States changes its stance on sanctions enforcement and pressure by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Kim observed the unspecified weapon being fired Wednesday by the Academy of Defence Science, the\u00a0North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said. Kim was reported to have said \u201cthe development of the weapon system serves as an event of very weighty significance in increasing the combat power of the People’s Army.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Associated Press could not independently verify\u00a0North\u00a0Korea’s claim, and it wasn’t immediately clear what had been tested. A major ballistic missile test would jeopardize the diplomatic talks meant to provide the\u00a0North\u00a0with concessions in return for disarmament. A South Korean analyst said that details in the\u00a0North’s media report indicate it could have been a new type of cruise missile. Another possible clue: one of the lower level officials mentioned in the\u00a0North’s report on the test — Pak Jong Chon — is known as an artillery official.<\/p>\n

Some in Seoul worry that the\u00a0North\u00a0will turn back to actions seen as provocative by outsiders as a way to force Washington to drop its hard-line negotiating stance and grant the\u00a0North’s demand for a removal of crushing international sanctions. A string of increasingly powerful weapons tests in 2017 and Trump’s response of \u201cfire and fury\u201d had many fearing war before the\u00a0North\u00a0shifted to diplomacy.<\/p>\n

Russia announced Thursday that Kim will visit later this month for talks at the invitation of President Vladimir Putin, but gave no further details. Russian media have been abuzz in recent days with rumours about the rare meeting between the leaders.<\/p>\n

Putin is to visit China later this month, and some media speculated that he could meet with Kim in Vladivostok, the far eastern port city near the border with\u00a0North\u00a0Korea.<\/p>\n

Trump said last month that he \u201cwould be very disappointed if I saw testing.\u201d There have been fresh reports of new activity at a\u00a0North\u00a0Korean missile research centre and long-range rocket site where the\u00a0North\u00a0is believed to build missiles targeting the U.S. mainland.\u00a0North\u00a0Korean media said Wednesday that Kim guided a flight drill of combat pilots from an air force and anti-aircraft unit tasked with defending the\u00a0North\u00a0from an attack.<\/p>\n

Kim Dong-yub, an analyst from Seoul’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said\u00a0North\u00a0Korea’s descriptions of the test show the weapon is possibly a newly developed cruise missile. The\u00a0North’s report said the \u201ctactical guided weapon\u201d successfully tested in a \u201cpeculiar mode of guiding flight\u201d and demonstrated the ability to deliver a \u201cpowerful warhead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The analyst said the test could also be intended as a message to the\u00a0North\u00a0Korean people and military of a commitment to maintaining a strong level of defence even as it continues talks with Washington over nukes.<\/p>\n

Melissa Hanham, a non-proliferation expert and director of the Datayo Project at the One Earth Future Foundation, said the\u00a0North\u00a0Korean weapon could be anything from an anti-tank weapon to a cruise missile.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0North\u00a0said Thursday that Kim Jong Un mounted an observation post to learn about and guide the test-fire of the weapon.<\/p>\n

This is the first known time Kim has observed the testing of a newly developed weapon system since last November, when\u00a0North\u00a0Korean media said he watched the successful test of an unspecified \u201cnewly developed ultramodern tactical weapon.\u201d Some observers have been expecting\u00a0North\u00a0Korea\u00a0to orchestrate \u201clow-level provocations,\u201d like artillery or short-range missile tests, to register its anger over the way nuclear negotiations were going.<\/p>\n

North\u00a0Korean officials accompanying Kim at the test included Ri Pyong Chol and Kim Jong Sik, two senior officials from the\u00a0North’s Munitions Industry Department who have been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for their activities related to the country’s ballistic missile program. Ri is believed to be a key official involved in\u00a0North\u00a0Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile development, while Kim Jong Sik has been linked to the country’s efforts to build solid-fuel missiles. The Pyongyang-based Munitions Industry Department is sanctioned both by the United States and the U.N. Security Council.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if this is not a ‘missile’ test the way we strictly define it, these people and MID are all sanctioned entities for a reason,\u201d Hanham said.<\/p>\n

The White House said it was aware of the report and had no comment. The Pentagon also said it was aware but had no information to provide at this point. South\u00a0Korea’s presidential office said it has no immediate comment. South\u00a0Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it is analyzing the test but did not specifically say what the weapon appeared to be.<\/p>\n

After the animosity of 2017, last year saw a stunning turn to diplomacy, culminating in the first-ever summit between the U.S. and\u00a0North\u00a0Korea\u00a0in Singapore, and then the Hanoi talks this year.\u00a0North\u00a0Koreahas suspended nuclear and long-range rocket tests, and the\u00a0North\u00a0and South Korean leaders have met three times. But there are growing worries that the progress could be killed by mismatched demands between the U.S. and\u00a0North\u00a0Korea\u00a0over sanctions relief and disarmament.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul and Lolita C. Baldor and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SEOUL,\u00a0Korea, Republic Of —\u00a0North\u00a0Korea\u00a0said Thursday that it had test-fired a new type of \u201ctactical guided weapon,\u201d its first such test …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":204177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-foster-klug","mauthors-kim-tong-hyung","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210583"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210585,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210583\/revisions\/210585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}