NKorea Fires Barrage of Missiles at Sea08/20 06:17

   

   SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea launched a barrage of ballistic 
missiles toward the sea on Thursday, South Korea's military said, a day after 
the North shrugged off a U.S. decision to scale back military drills with South 
Korea in an apparent bid to resume diplomacy.

   The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the launches of about 10 short-range 
ballistic missiles happened from North Korea's capital region around 5 p.m. 
(0800 GMT) on Thursday. The military said the missiles were launched toward 
North Korea's eastern waters.

   The military said South Korea has bolstered its surveillance posture and was 
closely coordinating information on the launches with the U.S. and Japan.

   South Korea's presidential national security council held an emergency 
meeting to discuss the launches. After the meeting, the council issued a 
statement urging North Korea to halt ballistic missile launches that are banned 
by U.N. Security Council resolutions.

   The Japanese prime minister's office had earlier said that it detected a 
suspected missile launch.

   On Wednesday, the South Korean and U.S. militaries said they were scaling 
back their 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises. U.S. President Donald Trump 
earlier ordered the Pentagon to "substantially reduce" the exercises, just 
before they began Monday. Trump cited what he said was a good relationship with 
Kim and South Korea's refusal to support him over the war in Iran.

   Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, 
dismissed Trump's overture later Wednesday, saying it was not even worthy of 
comment.

   "The provocative, aggressive nature of the drills won't change even though 
their duration and size were reduced," she said in a statement. "If the U.S. 
calculates that it can propagate its recent measure as the one of so-called 
good faith, they will not get the desired answer."

   Kim Yo Jong still refrained from the typical North Korean reaction of fiery 
rhetoric and said personal relations between her brother and Trump are "still 
excellent." That signals North Korea would want to wait for Trump to make 
bigger concessions before returning to talks.

   She denied Trump's claim that Kim Jong Un had responded to his request for a 
conversation.

   When asked by reporters Wednesday if he would be meeting with Kim Jong Un 
this year, Trump said that "Yeah, I will be." He wouldn't answer a question 
about whether he is exchanging letters with Kim but said he gets along with him.

   The Ulchi Freedom Shield is one of the main military exercises conducted by 
the U.S. and South Korea annually to enhance their ability to cope with 
potential North Korean aggression. Washington and Seoul say their drills are 
defensive in nature, but North Korea calls them an invasion rehearsal and often 
reacts with weapons tests.

   Before this month's drills started, North Korea accused the U.S. and South 
Korea of plotting more provocative exercises this summer and vowed to respond 
with "a new level of a deterrent." Days before the drills' start, North Korea 
fired two ballistic missiles into the sea in its first such launches since late 
June.

   Trump's earlier diplomacy with Kim Jong Un collapsed in 2019 due to disputes 
over how much sanctions relief North Korea should be given in return for 
dismantling its main nuclear complex, a limited denuclearization step. Kim has 
since shunned any talks with the U.S., pushed to modernize weapons arsenals and 
expanded cooperation with Russia.

   Kim has said he won't place his nuclear program back on the negotiating 
table. Experts say Kim has more leverage than when he first held talks with 
Trump in 2018 and 2019. They say Kim likely hopes to eventually win 
international recognition as a nuclear state and extensive sanctions relief in 
exchange for only limited steps toward denuclearization.