Washington decided on Wednesday to impose new financial penalties against five North Korean nationals. For its part, Pyongyang promised Friday to never give up its “right to self-defense”.
Le Monde with AFP
US ads did not prevent Pyongyang from conducting her third weapon test in two weeks. North Korea has shot two new ballistic missiles on Friday, January 14, according to the South Korean army.
Despite international sanctions against its prohibited weapons programs, Pyongyang has already shot two missiles, presented as hypersonic, since the beginning of the year. A first on January 5th and a second, supervised in person by the Kim Jong-one leader on 11 January. In response, Washington decided on Wednesday to impose new financial penalties for five North Korean nationals. For his part, Pyongyang promised Friday to never give up his “right to self-defense”.
Friday morning projectiles, short-range ballistic missiles, were launched towards the east of the Korean Peninsula, clarified the Joint Chiefs of Staff of South Korea. The launches took place at 2:41 pm and 2:00 pm (6:41 and 6:00 am, Paris) and the missiles traveled a distance of 432 kilometers to an altitude of 36 kilometers.
The South Korean Security Council has “strongly regretted” this test, which, deplored, “does not contribute to stability in the Korean peninsula at this critical moment”.
In Tokyo, the Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi, said the projectiles had fallen outside the exclusive economic zone of Japan. These repeated tests prove that Pyongyang “seeks to improve its launch technologies,” he said.
Pyongyang accuses Washington to improve the situation
Following the sanctions announced by Washington and who “are aimed at the persistent recourse by North Korea to representatives abroad to illegally procure property for the manufacture of arms”, Pyongyang accused the United States. United to envoy “intentionally” the situation.
If “the United States adopts such a confrontation attitude, the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] will be forced to react stronger and more certainly,” said North Foreign Ministry spokesman. -Corean, according to the KCNA official news agency. North Korea has the “legitimate right” to develop new weapons as part of its willingness to “modernize its national defense capacity,” he added.
Thursday, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, called the North Korea to negotiate with the United States, which, according to him, do not feed any “hostile intent” with respect to the Kim Jong regime -a. The continuation of the tests is “deeply destabilizing, dangerous and contrary to a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions,” said Blinken at a television interview.
The dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington remains deadlocked after the failure in 2019 discussions between Kim Jong-one and the US President of the Donald Trump era.