N.Korea should stop testing world’s patience

The firing of two projectiles by North Korea on Thursday is yet another provocative action that casts fresh doubts on efforts to resume the stalled denuclearisation talks as agreed by US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after they met at the demilitarised zone between the two Koreas in June.

It is the latest in a series of launches by the North but the first since Oct.2, when it fired a sea-launched missile in a provocative move — a submarine-based missile capability would change the military balance.

The North then walked away from working-level nuclear talks with the US in Sweden, saying it was disappointed at the lack of “new and creative” solutions offered by Washington.

Such repeated launching of missiles would not do any good for North Korea, but instead ignite more international anger against the country.

Pyongyang is under multiple sets of international sanctions over its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programmes, which it says it needs to defend against a possible US invasion.

Top North Korean officials have recently been issuing statements of displeasure over the slow pace of nuclear negotiations and have been demanding that the Trump administration ease crippling sanctions and pressure on their country.

Washington’s reaction initially to Thursday’s missile launch has been muted with a State Department spokesman stating, “We are aware of reports of a North Korean missile launch. We are continuing to monitor the situation and consulting closely with our allies in Japan and South Korea.”

South Korea and Japan are obviously infuriated by the latest provocation. The South’s National Security Council has expressed strong concern over Thursday’s launch and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has condemned it, saying it “threatens peace and stability of the country and the region.”

Negotiations aimed at dismantling North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes have effectively been stalled since a second summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un in Vietnam in February ended without a deal.

The two leaders then met at the Demilitarized Zone border between the two Koreas and pledged to reopen working-level talks within weeks.

North Korea had been developing submarine-launched ballistic missile technology before it suspended long-range missile and nuclear tests and began talks with the United States that led to the first summit between Kim and Trump in Singapore in June 2018.

State news agency KCNA released photos and a report of Kim Jong Un in July inspecting a large, newly built submarine, seen as a potential signal that Pyongyang was continuing with its development of a submarine-launched ballistic missile programme.

In a sign that things are not moving in the right direction, the North’s state media carried a statement on Sunday from Kim Yong Chol — previously the North’s counterpart to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — accusing Washington of seeking to “isolate and stifle the DPRK in a more crafty and vicious way than before”.

He lauded the “close personal relations” between Kim and Trump, but warned: “There is a limit to everything.”

If at all anything, the latest launch displays Pyongyang’s frustration over the absence of concessions in nuclear talks.

But what Pyongyang fails to realise is that firing more and more missiles cannot be a solution.  It should not resort to threats and instead work out a way through sincere negotiations.

The nuclear issue is definitely too serious to be lost in the din of allegations and counter-allegations.