North Korea Fires Off Pair of Cruise Missiles in First Such Test Since July

North Korea fired off a pair of cruise missiles on the heels of an Asian trip by top U.S. officials, putting a fresh spotlight on Biden administration deliberations over how to resolve a key security dilemma.

The two missiles were fired from South Pyongan province Sunday morning and flew over the sea between the peninsula and China, the South Korean Defense Ministry said Wednesday. Earlier, U.S. officials in Washington had confirmed the test of a “short-range system,” adding that the incident didn’t appear to violate a United Nations ban on ballistic missile launches by the country.

While launching cruise missiles isn’t prohibited by UN resolutions, Kim Jong Un had refrained from such provocations since testing an anti-ship weapons system in July. The move came days after U.S. officials led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken huddled with South Korean counterparts in Seoul as part of President Joe Biden’s effort to craft a strategy for rolling back North Korea’s nuclear program.

The decision to withhold news of the launch until after the Washington Post reported it Tuesday was consistent with efforts under former President Donald Trump to avoid being drawn into another crisis with North Korea. Trump had often sought to play down such launches, including tests of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles that violate UN resolutions and pose a more serious threat to American troops and U.S. allies in Japan and South Korea.

Asked about the launch during a trip to Ohio, Biden said only that he had learned that “nothing much has changed,” without elaborating. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will host his counterparts from Japan and South Korea next week to discuss North Korea as part of broader administration efforts to craft a coordinated strategy toward North Korea.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato declined to comment on the incident Wednesday. “We will continue to cooperate closely with the U.S. and South Korea to gather and analyze information on North Korea’s military activities, while doing all we can to stay on the alert,” Kato said in Tokyo.

The Biden administration’s policy review has included talks with former Trump officials. Those discussions included an acknowledgment that following Trump’s second summit with Kim in February 2019, there had been very little communication with the North Korean regime, the current U.S. officials said Tuesday.

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