President Moon says dialogue with North ‘impossible’ By Jun Ji-hye

A Hyunmoo-2 ballistic missile is launched during an exercise by the South Korean military at an undisclosed location near the East Sea, Friday, in response to North Korea’s firing of a ballistic missile into the North Pacific Ocean earlier in the day. / Courtesy of Republic of Korea Army

President Moon Jae-in condemned North Korea’s launch of a ballistic missile Friday, saying dialogue with Pyongyang was “impossible in a situation like this.”
Moon also warned that South Korea has “power that can destroy the North beyond any recovery.”

President Moon Jae-in

“North Korea ignored international rules and launched a missile that flew over the skies of another country. This behavior deserves criticism,” Moon said while presiding over a National Security Council session at Cheong Wa Dae, a few hours after the North committed the missile provocation.

Moon said the North’s repeated provocations will only lead to more pressure and sanctions from the international community, which will make it more difficult for the Kim Jong-un regime to come back to the negotiating table.

“The North should realize that its provocations will only cause its deepening diplomatic and economic isolation that will lead to its collapse,” Moon said.

On Friday morning, the North launched what was presumed to be an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) over Japan for the second time in a less than a month, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The missile flew about 3,700 kilometers and reached an altitude of 770 kilometers after being launched from the Sunan area in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang where the country’s main airport is located, the JCS said.

“North Korea fired an unidentified ballistic missile at 6:57 a.m. that passed through the skies over northern Japan and landed in the North Pacific Ocean east of Japan,” the JCS said.

The JCS noted its initial assessment indicated that the missile was an IRBM or a higher level one.

On Aug. 29, the Kim regime also fired an IRBM over Japan that traveled about 2,700 kilometers at a maximum altitude of 550 kilometers before landing in the Pacific waters.

This showed that the North increased the flight distance by 1,000 kilometers in a less than a month.

The North’s IRBM is believed to have a range of about 4,500 kilometers, though the analysis of the range varies slightly among agencies and institutes.

A JCS official said, asking not to be named, that the ballistic trajectory in the latest launch was similar to one used in the Aug. 29 test, during which the North was believed to fire the missile at normal angle, not using a lofted, high-angle trajectory. Previously, the North fired its missiles at a high angle, claiming it was to exert no adverse effect on the security of neighboring countries.

In response, the Republic of Korea Army shot Hyunmoo-2 ballistic missiles from an eastern site near the inter-Korean border just six minutes after the North’s missile provocation.

The JCS official said that the Army launched two missiles in a show of force, with one precisely hitting a simulated target in the East Sea about 250 kilometers away, the same distance between the training area and the North’s Sunan district where the missile was fired.

The other, however, failed “in the initial stage,” the official said, adding that military authorities are currently conducting analysis to find out the cause of the failure.

President Moon vowed to come up with firmer and more effective measures to change Pyongyang’s behavior, ordering his security aides to finalize a revision of missile guidelines at the earliest possible date.

Earlier this month, Moon and U.S. President Donald Trump reached a verbal agreement to revise guidelines to lift the limit on the maximum weight of warheads to be mounted on South Korean ballistic missiles in an effort to boost Seoul’s self-defense capabilities.

Moon also told his aides on foreign affairs to make every effort to ensure new sanctions adopted Monday by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) are thoroughly implemented.

Protest against sanctions

The North’s latest missile provocation came less than a week after the UNSC adoption of harsher-than-ever sanctions against Pyongyang in response to its sixth nuclear test conducted Sept. 3.

The new sanctions resolution targeted oil supplies to the impoverished state for the first time, capping imports of crude oil at the level of the last 12 months and limiting the imports of refined petroleum products to 2 million barrels a year. The measure is expected to reduce oil provided to the North by 30 percent.

The JCS official said the North’s missile launch was apparently to protest the new resolution, and deliver a message that it will continue to develop its nuclear and missile programs despite sanctions.

“Also, the North may have wanted to show its ability to strike areas around Guam,” he said.

Last month, the North threatened to strike waters around Guam with four Hwasong-12 IRBMs. Guam is located about 3,000 kilometers from Pyongyang.

The U.S. Pacific Command said in a statement that it determined the ballistic missile launched this time did not pose a threat to Guam.

Meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe issued a warning to the North, saying it should understand that “there will be no bright future if it continues to follow a path like this.”

Abe also called on the international community to cooperate to better deter North Korea’s repeated provocations.

Trump will also meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping during the trip.

Source:koreatimes.co.kr