Seoul (AFP)
The shooting by North Korea on Friday, which was the test of a "new weapon", was supervised by the leader Kim Jong Un, announced Saturday the official KCNA news agency.
The shooting, the sixth in three weeks, is likely to complicate the efforts of the US special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, who will visit Japan and South Korea next week to discuss the denuclearization of North.
Pyongyang has been carrying out these successive launches since the end of July to demonstrate its anger at joint military maneuvers by US and South Korean forces.
North Korea has always condemned these annual exercises as a hostile activity and as a preparation for a future invasion of its territory.
However, it had so far refrained from missile testing while joint maneuvers were in progress.
Before the launch of the current maneuvers, Pyongyang had warned that maintaining them would jeopardize the announced resumption of talks between Pyongyang and Washington on denuclearization.
Military officials in Seoul said the guns launched on Friday were apparently two short-range ballistic missiles, which had traveled about 230 kilometers before sinking at sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan.
The KCNA agency said Saturday, as is often the case, that this trial was conducted "in the presence of the Supreme Leader" Kim Jong Un.
The announcement of the official agency comes as Pyongyang yesterday described South Korean President Moon Jae-in as "shameless" and rejected his wish to resume inter-Korean talks while pursuing military maneuvers with the United States. .
As for the resumption of working discussions between Washington and Pyongyang on the North Korean nuclear arsenal, announced following an impromptu meeting in June between MM. Trump and Kim, it has not happened yet.
Trump, however, said last week that he had received "a very nice letter" from the North Korean leader.
The President of the United States has regularly downplayed the importance of the current series of missile tests, stressing that they are only short-range missiles.
Mr. Trump even criticized, like Mr. Kim, joint US-South Korean maneuvers, noting in particular their high cost.
In this context, the US State Department on Friday announced that US Special Envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun would visit Japan and South Korea next week for talks on the denuclearization of the United States. North.
However, North Korea stressed that the nuclear talks would be conducted exclusively between Pyongyang and Washington, and currently refuses any separate dialogue with Seoul.
© 2019 AFP