North Korea fired a short-range test missile Saturday morning, according to South Korean officials.
Kim Jong Un’s regime “fired a missile from its east coast town of Wonsan in the eastern direction at 9:06 a.m. today,” South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said in a news release.
The statement added that South Korean officials and U.S. authorities “are analyzing details of the missile.” South Korea remains on alert for any more potential launches.
Last month, North Korea’s state media claimed the country had launched a “tactical guided weapons firing test.” Kim said the launch was a “great historic event in strengthening the combat capability of the People’s Army.” U.S. officials said they detected no such missile testing.
The missile launch follows months of efforts by President Trump to get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program. Trump abruptly left a February summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, early after Kim demanded full sanctions relief in exchange for dismantling a single site in his nuclear program.
National security adviser John Bolton said earlier this week Washington plans to continue negotiating with Pyongyang on a one-on-one basis and not through multilateral talks.
“I think Kim Jong Un, at least up until now, has wanted the one-on-one contact with the United States, which is what he has gotten,” Bolton said Sunday.
Talks between the United States and North Korea have soured recently as Kim Jong Un accused the United States last month of negotiating in “bad faith.”
