The U.S., Japan and South Korea held a three-way call to coordinate their response to North Korea’s barrage of short-range ballistic missiles, after Pyongyang dismissed President Donald Trump’s overtures to revive dialogue with leader Kim Jong Un.
North Korea launched about 10 ballistic missiles from Pyongyang Thursday that flew roughly 300 kilometers (186 miles), South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. Japan’s coast guard earlier said a suspected North Korean missile appeared to have fallen outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, according to the nation’s public broadcaster NHK.
Officials from the U.S., South Korea and Japan urged North Korea to halt “provocations that threaten the peace and security of the region and the international community” during a phone call Friday, Japan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
It comes after Trump stunned Seoul by abruptly canceling decades-old annual military exercises with South Korea. North Korea then mocked the South as a U.S. “puppet” following Trump’s unilateral decision to curtail the drills, while also casting doubt on the U.S. president’s suggestion that high-level communication between Washington and Pyongyang had resumed.
Pyongyang said that despite the “excellent” relationship between Trump and its leader, Kim, America’s hostile policy toward the North remained unchanged.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung nevertheless welcomed Trump’s move to curtail the exercises as a potential opening for renewed diplomacy.
“The latest message from President Trump strikes me as a major decision reflecting deep consideration of how to move beyond hostility and confrontation and build peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Lee said in a late-night X post on Wednesday.
The missile launches came just hours after South Korea’s defense minister said North Korea may possess as many as 120 nuclear weapons, more than twice the 57 warheads cited by Trump. Earlier, U.S. Pacific Command said in a statement that the launches “do not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to our allies.”
“The numbers appear to be somewhat different,” Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back told lawmakers when asked about Trump’s assessment that Kim has “57 very powerful nuclear weapons.”
“We usually look at around 80 to 120,” Ahn said, referring to South Korea’s estimates.
Ahn later clarified that he was citing an assessment by a South Korean research institute. “As for the military’s own assessment, there are considerable limitations on what I can disclose here,” he said.
The latest weapons test marks North Korea’s third missile launch this month, underscoring the scale of the challenge confronting Trump as he tries to resurrect the personal diplomacy with Kim that defined his first term as president.
“I know Kim Jong Un very well, and he’s going to be fine. As long as we have a smart president, he’s going to be fine,” Trump has said.
Despite Trump’s confidence, Kim’s expanding arsenal complicates U.S. effort to revive diplomacy. Trump and Kim met three times during the U.S. leader’s first term, but the talks failed to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
—With assistance from Iain Marlow.
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