A US official told CNN that North Korea had launched short-range projectiles, possibly artillery or cruise missiles, not ballistic missiles – a fundamental distinction that reinforces the Biden government’s view that it does not qualify as a serious violation and it will not prevent the United States from pursuing diplomacy with Pyongyang.
“We don’t see the activity that took place this weekend as closing that door,” said a senior official on Tuesday, referring to future diplomatic attempts.
Biden, asked on Tuesday about what he had learned about the test, told reporters before boarding Air Force One in Ohio: “We learned that not much has changed.”
While senior administration officials downplay the seriousness of North Korea’s actions, they reiterated that US forces in the region are always prepared and on high alert.
“It would be difficult to find a place on the planet where there would be more surveillance than the circumstances and situations surrounding North Korea. Our forces are always prepared, always on high alert,” said a senior official.
“It is common for North Korea to test multiple systems … we do not respond publicly to all types of tests,” added the senior administration official. “This is a system that is not covered by UN Security Council resolutions. It is a normal part of the type of testing that North Korea would do. We do not believe it is in our interest to exaggerate these things in circumstances where we would consider these. activities as part of a ‘normal’ set of a tense military environment, as we see on the Korean Peninsula. ”
News of the arms test arrives while North Korea has been relatively quiet since the weekend, avoiding touting its military prowess or ability to stand up to the United States, leaving authorities questioning the intention behind the launch.
South Korea and Japan, America’s regional allies, were equally silent.
South Korea’s military detected the launch of two cruise missiles on Sunday morning, the Defense Ministry later said in a text to reporters.
“Our military was monitoring missiles in real time in cooperation with the United States and detected (the missiles),” the ministry said. He said he is reviewing the missile specifications.
A South Korean lawmaker, Ha Tae-keung, said in a Facebook post that authorities have decided not to announce the launch as they did in the past.
Review of Biden’s policy towards North Korea in ‘final stages’
US lawmakers and key allies are eagerly awaiting details about North Korea’s Biden policy, which they hope to be publicly announced in the coming weeks, when the government completes a policy review, several sources familiar with internal discussions told CNN earlier this month.
Senior government officials said on Tuesday that the policy review is in its “final stages” and that Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, would welcome his Japanese and South Korean counterparts in Washington next week to discuss the subject in depth.
North Korea’s decision to conduct a weapons test before this announcement is hardly surprising, as U.S. officials, lawmakers and experts have been warning for weeks that the Hermit Kingdom is likely to conduct some kind of weapons test in the near future.
“North Korea has traditionally taken some kind of strongly provocative action at the beginning of the new administrations in the United States and South Korea,” Bruce Klingner, senior researcher at the Heritage Foundation, told CNN last week, pointing to tests conducted in 2017, shortly after the previous President Donald Trump took office, and in 2009, to mark the arrival of former President Barack Obama at the White House.
“Therefore, history would indicate that they would do something in the first few months of a Biden administration as well,” he said at the time. “If they do a provocation, it is perfectly predictable.”
But the North Korean action was less provocative than in previous administrations.
Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies, specializing in open source intelligence, told CNN on Tuesday that North Korea appears to have tested a coastal defense cruise missile, which he said was “quite routine and, all things considered, a very mild response to the US-South Korea military exercise. “
“On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being a test for a new intercontinental ballistic missile and 1 is Kim farting in our general direction, this is a 2,” he added.
CNN reported last week that US intelligence has assessed that North Korea could be preparing to carry out its first weapons test since Biden was sworn in as president and that American officials were on the alert while the US Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin traveled to Asia for meetings with their Japanese and South Korean counterparts.
This answer will vary depending on what, exactly, Pyongyang tested. Senior government officials declined to provide details about the specific type of system that North Korea tested over the weekend, but reiterated that it was a “short-range” system.
Contacting Trump officials
While the Biden government was conducting a thorough review of its policy towards North Korea, senior officials from the White House and the State Department held a series of lengthy conversations with their colleagues on the Trump team, according to officials in the current government.
The talks were “polite”, “respectful” and “very helpful” in determining the potential for future engagement with North Korea, officials said, suggesting that after the failure of the Trump summit with Kim in Hanoi, Vietnam, there was little substantive dialogue or interaction with Pyongyang.
In these negotiations, Trump officials attributed the interruption of communication with North Korea to a variety of potential reasons, including the Covid-19 pandemic and a reassessment within North Korea.
Biden’s team believes that diplomacy is not out of the question.
“We are on our way to clearly signal that we are prepared to continue engagement in Northeast Asia with key partners and, in fact, with North Korea,” said an official.
Authorities said they learned a lot from their Trump colleagues, both about Trump’s discussions with Kim in Singapore and Vietnam and about other private sessions between North Korean and U.S. delegations.
The next day, Blinken and Austin reaffirmed their commitment to “complete denuclearization of North Korea” in Japan and to creating opportunities for greater cooperation between the US, Japan and South Korea, according to a State Department statement. from the USA.
Last Tuesday, a senior US general also issued a public warning about the threat posed by North Korea.
“The Kim Jong Un regime has achieved alarming success in its quest to demonstrate the ability to threaten the US homeland with nuclear weapons ICBMs, believing that such weapons are necessary to stop US military action and ensure the survival of its regime “said General Glen Van Herck. , head of the US Northern Command and responsible for the defense of the continental United States, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week.
This story was updated with further developments on Tuesday.
CNN’s Nicole Gaouette, Maegan Vazquez, Jake Kwon and Kylie Atwood contributed to the report.