Pyongyang condemns end to US limits on South Korean missiles
Seoul, May 31 (EFE).- North Korea on Monday condemned the United States’ recent decision to lift restrictions on the range and payload of South Korean missiles and said that Washington’s new policy to achieve the denuclearization of the peninsula is “just trickery.”
It is the first time that the regime has responded to the decision announced on May 21 during the summit in Washington between the presidents of the US and South Korea, Joe Biden and Moon Jae-in.
During the meeting, it was approved to definitively end the guidelines that Washington had imposed on its ally for decades regarding the manufacture of missiles.
In 2017, the Pentagon eliminated the limitation on the weight of projectile payloads, which affects the amount of explosives carried by the missile, but maintained the limitation of 800 kilometers maximum range.
Despite being therefore a symbolic decision with regard to North Korea, Pyongyang considered in a note published Monday by the state news agency KCNA that it is an “apparently deliberate and hostile act” by the US.
The note considers ironic that the “US, doggedly branding the measures taken by the DPRK for self-defense as violation of UN ‘resolutions’, grants its allies unlimited right to missile development.”
The text says the decision “is a stark reminder of the US hostile policy” toward the isolated country and that the Biden administration’s new strategy to deal with North Korea is “just trickery.”
The note was signed by a North Korean expert on international affairs, Kim Myong-chol, and not by a high-ranking regime official, as happens when Pyongyang wants to convey its strongest messages.
The new US strategy for North Korea rules out the all or nothing approach of Donald Trump and the strategic patience of Barack Obama, betting on a middle path that pursues diplomatic dialog in phases and that seeks to rekindle conversations that have remained frozen since 2019.
However, Pyongyang, more isolated than usual due to its efforts to prevent Covid-19 from entering the country, has not responded, at least publicly, to the requests that Washington has been raising since February to resume the denuclearization talks. EFE
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