WASHINGTON — U.S. officials said North Korea tested a short-range weapon system over the weekend but offered few details and downplayed the significance of the actions.
North Korea’s actions didn’t specifically violate United Nations sanctions, the officials told reporters Tuesday, adding that additional details were classified. The officials characterized the activity as relatively minor.
The Washington Post reported that multiple short-range missiles were fired, something North Korea did with regularity during the Trump administration. Then-President Donald Trump dismissed short-range missile launches as not a threat to the U.S., though South Korean officials usually consider them more alarming.
The Biden administration is continuing a full review of U.S. policies put in place against North Korea by the Trump administration, the officials said. As part of that effort, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan will host his counterparts from Japan and South Korea next week to discuss North Korea, the officials said.
The policy review has included talks with former Trump officials. Those discussions included an acknowledgment that following Trump’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam in 2019, there had been very little communication with Kim’s regime, the current officials said.
The White House last week said the Biden administration has sought to reach out to North Korea but never received a response. Later, the two sides traded barbs. North Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui called the U.S. outreach a “time-delaying trick.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken shrugged off Choe’s comments during a trip through Asia at the time, saying the U.S. was focused on consulting partners to draft policy plans.
“There are different kinds of pressure points that might convince North Korea to make progress,” Blinken said after meeting South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-young and Defense Minister Suh Wook. “The goal is to really figure out how we have the best chance in resolving the challenges posed by North Korea to us and unfortunately to its own people.
