U.S. officials said Thursday that the Pentagon was stepping up its readiness in the Pacific in the light of two North Korean missile tests the last two weeks. North Korea has said the launches were to help develop satellites, but according to CBS News Asia correspondent Elizabeth Palmer, US intelligence believes Kim Jong Un’s army was testing real parts of the giant intercontinental ballistic missile. -17 »(ICBM).
The new weapon was released at a military parade in 2020, but as far as we know, it has never been launched. If the rocket works the way it was designed, it could potentially reach anywhere in the continental United States.
- New South Korean leader vows to teach Kim “ways”
North Korea has stepped up its missile tests since the beginning of the year, and the United States has expressed concern that the international community is not doing enough to stop them.
KCNA
Senior government official Biden said on Thursday that February 26 and March 4 missile tests represented a “serious escalation” from North Korea, but unlike three ICBM tests conducted in 2017, none of the recent launches demonstrated the range or capabilities of the missile system involved.
“They were probably meant to test elements of this new system before the PRC [North Korea] “It is conducting a full-scale launch, which they may try to disguise as a space launch,” the official said, citing an assessment by the US intelligence service that it was in close coordination with key regional allies Japan and South Korea. The information was shared with other US allies, including the United Nations.
Just last month the Kim regime said he would consider continuing “All Temporarily Suspended Activities” suspended during a series of diplomatic approaches with the Trump administration. It was seen as a threat to resume testing of nuclear explosives – and long-range missiles.
Just last week, satellite imagery showed renewed activity at the North Punggye-Ri nuclear facility, which closed in 2018. On Friday, South Korean media quoted officials in Seoul as saying that the tunnels blown up by the Punggye Ri North Korea years ago, in an offer to show the facility was out of order, appeared to be under repair.
In response to the latest tests, the U.S. military has ordered intensive intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance activities in the Yellow Sea off the west coast of North and South Korea and increased US ballistic defense forces in the area, the official said.
North Korea launches long-range missile, most powerful since 2017
01:45
The US Treasury Department was to announce new steps to prevent the Kim regime from gaining access to foreign objects and technology needed to launch its missile programs, and a Biden government official said there would be “a number of further steps in the coming days.” ».
President Biden has previously said he was willing to meet with Kim in person “when there is a serious agreement on the table,” but the White House says any high-level dialogue should be based on labor negotiations, and North Korea “continues.” not to respond “to efforts to move these talks forward.
Palmer says the Biden government has not proposed anything specific to start the talks.
Negotiations between Kim and former President Donald Trump in 2018 and 2019 collapsed without agreement to limit North Korea’s weapons program.
KCNA / Reuters
Kim appeared on a space launch pad on Friday and announced that he was going to accelerate the development of his country’s military satellites.
Palmer, meanwhile, says Western analysts believe North Korea has built enough nuclear material for at least one, maybe two more atomic weapons in just the first 10 weeks of this year.
CBS News’ Sara Cook and Tucker Reals contributed to this report.
- In:
- Kim Jong Un
- South Korea
- nuclear weapons
- Joe Biden
- North Korea
- Japan
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