Kim Jong-un strikes a shot: North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles in the direction of Japan, right on the day of the departure of the Olympic torch, in view of the Tokyo Games. Thursday 25 March is the first ballistic test carried out by Pyongyang, after the inauguration of the US president, Joe Biden, and rekindles the spotlight on one of the most complex and unmanageable international dossiers, in a region crossed by growing tensions, fueled by confrontation increasingly bitter between the United States and China.
The reactions
The alarm of the countries directly threatened by North Korea was immediate. The Japanese Prime Minister, Yoshihide Suga, said that North Korea’s resumption of ballistic tests puts “peace and security in Japan and the region at risk”. South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong expressed “deep concern”. Also in Seoul was the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, who asked for a rapid resumption of dialogue to resolve the stalemate with North Korea. Beijing invites dialogue, the only way to arrive at a “political solution”.
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The launch took place from the Wonsan base, on the eastern side of North Korea, at a distance of 20 minutes from each other, with a distance of 420 and 430 kilometers respectively, landing outside the exclusive economic zone of Japan.
Second signal
By the weekend, North Korea had already fired two cruise missiles. The United States responded with indifference: “Business as usual,” Biden commented. Kim Jong-un would then have decided to raise the bar. According to analysts, the goal would be the same as always: to provoke Washington to attract it to the negotiating table, where to ask for economic aid in exchange for concessions on the nuclear dossier, without however giving up its war potential, as explained by Moon Seong Mook, analyst of the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy in Seoul.
A tactic that worked for a while with Donald Trump, only to be wrecked, with the failure of the second summit between the two heads of state, in February 2019, when the US rejected the request to lift the sanctions. North Korea stopped long-range missile tests after the first meeting with Trump in 2018. Short and medium-range tests continued (16 launches between 2019 and 2020).