SEOUL, South Korea \u2014 A North Korean mid-range ballistic missile apparently failed shortly after launch Saturday, South Korea and the United States said, th<\/b>
\nSEOUL, South Korea \u2014 A North Korean mid-range ballistic missile apparently failed shortly after launch Saturday, South Korea and the United States said, the third test-fire flop just this month but a clear message of defiance as a US supercarrier conducts drills in nearby waters.
North Korean ballistic missile tests are banned by the United Nations because they\u2019 re seen as part of the North\u2019s push for a nuclear-tipped missile that can hit the US mainland. The latest test came as US officials pivoted from a hard line to diplomacy at the UN in an effort to address what may be Washington\u2019s most pressing foreign policy challenge.
President Donald Trump said on Twitter, \u201cNorth Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!\u201d He did not answer reporters\u2019 questions about the missile launch upon returning to the White House from a day trip to Atlanta.
North Korea didn\u2019 t immediately comment on the launch, though its state media on Saturday reiterated the country\u2019s goal of being able to strike the continental US.
The timing of the North\u2019s test was striking: Only hours earlier the UN Security Council held a ministerial meeting on Pyongyang\u2019s escalating weapons program. North Korean officials boycotted the meeting, which was chaired by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
South Korea\u2019s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the missile flew for several minutes and reached a maximum height of 71 kilometers (44 miles) before it apparently failed.
It didn\u2019 t immediately provide an estimate on how far the missile flew, but a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said it was likely a medium-range KN-17 ballistic missile. It broke up a few minutes after the launch.
Japan\u2019s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, speaking after a meeting of Japan\u2019s National Security Council, said the missile is believed to have traveled about 50 kilometers (30 miles) and fallen on an inland part of North Korea.
Analysts say the KN-17 is a new Scud-type missile developed by North Korea. The North fired the same type of missile April 16, just a day after a massive military parade where it showed off its expanding missile arsenal, but US officials called that launch a failure.
Some analysts say a missile the North test fired April 5, which US officials identified as a Scud variant, also might have been a KN-17. US officials said that missile spun out of control and crashed into the sea.
Moon Seong Mook, a South Korean analyst and former military official, says that the North would gain valuable knowledge even from failed launches as it continues to improve its technologies for missiles. The South Korean and Japanese assessments about Saturday\u2019s launch indicate that the North fired the missile from a higher-than-normal angle to prevent it from flying too far, he said.
\u201cThey could be testing a variety of things, such as the thrust of the rocket engine or the separation of stages, \u201d Moon said. \u201cA failure is a failure, but that doesn\u2019 t mean the launch was meaningless.\u201d
The two earlier launches were conducted from an eastern coastal area, but Saturday\u2019s missile was fired in the west, from an area near Pukchang, just north of the capital, Pyongyang.
South Korea\u2019s Foreign Ministry denounced the launch as an \u201cobvious\u201d violation of United Nations resolutions and the latest display of North Korea\u2019s \u201cbelligerence and recklessness.\u201d
\u201cWe sternly warn that the North Korean government will continue to face a variety of strong punitive measures issued by the UN Security Council and others if it continues to reject denuclearization and play with fire in front of the world, \u201d the ministry said.
The North routinely test-fires a variety of ballistic missiles, despite UN prohibitions, as part of its weapons development. While shorter-range missiles are somewhat routine, there is strong outside worry about each longer-range North Korean ballistic test.
Saturday\u2019s launch comes at a point of particularly high tension. Trump has sent a nuclear-powered submarine and the USS Carl Vinson aircraft supercarrier to Korean waters, and North Korea this week conducted large-scale, live-fire exercises on its eastern coast. The U. S. and South Korea also started installing a missile defense system that is supposed to be partially operational within days, while their two navies began joint military drills later Saturday.
The South Korean navy said the drills are aimed at \u201cdeterring North Korea\u2019s provocations and displaying the firm alliance between the United States and South Korea.\u201d
On Friday, the United States and China offered starkly different strategies for addressing North Korea\u2019s escalating nuclear threat as Tillerson demanded full enforcement of economic sanctions on Pyongyang and urged new penalties. Stepping back from suggestions of U. S. military action, he even offered aid to North Korea if it ends its nuclear weapons program.
The range of Tillerson\u2019s suggestions, which over a span of 24 hours also included restarting negotiations, reflected America\u2019s failure to halt North Korea\u2019s nuclear advances despite decades of US-led sanctions, military threats and stop-and-go rounds of diplomatic engagement. As the North approaches the capability to hit the U. S. mainland with a nuclear-tipped missile, the Trump administration feels it is running out of time.
Chairing a ministerial meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday, Tillerson declared that \u201cfailing to act now on the most pressing security issue in the world may bring catastrophic consequences.\u201d
His ideas included a ban on North Korean coal imports and preventing its overseas guest laborers, a critical source of government revenue, from sending money home. And he warned of unilateral US moves against international firms conducting banned business with Pyongyang\u2019s nuclear and missile programs, which could ensnare banks in China, the North\u2019s primary trade partner.
Yet illustrating the international gulf over how best to tackle North Korea, several foreign ministers on the 15-member council expressed fears of a conflict on the Korean Peninsula, which was divided between the American-backed South and communist North even before the 1950-53 Korean War. The conflict ended with no formal peace treaty. And while danger always has lurked, tensions have escalated dramatically as the North\u2019s young leader, Kim Jong Un, has expanded a nuclear arsenal his government says is needed to avert a US invasion.
No voice at Friday\u2019s session was more important than that of China, a conduit for 90 percent of North Korea\u2019s commerce and a country Trump is pinning hopes on for a peaceful resolution to the nuclear crisis. Trump, who recently hosted President Xi Jinping for a Florida summit, has sometimes praised the Chinese leader for a newfound cooperation to crack down on North Korea and sometimes threatened a go-it-alone US approach if Xi fails to deliver.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China would adhere to past UN resolutions and wants a denuclearized peninsula. But he spelled out no further punitive steps his government might consider, despite Tillerson\u2019s assertions in an interview hours ahead of the council meeting that Beijing would impose sanctions of its own if North Korea conducts another nuclear test.
Wang put forward a familiar Chinese idea to ease tensions: North Korea suspending its nuclear and missile activities if the US and South Korea stop military exercises in the region. Washington and Seoul reject the idea.
Tillerson said the US does not seek regime change in North Korea, and he signaled American openness to holding direct negotiations with Pyongyang. The US also could resume aid to North Korea once it \u201cbegins to dismantle its nuclear weapons and missile technology programs, \u201d he said. Since 1995, he added, Washington has provided more than $1.3 billion to the impoverished country.
But the prospects for any more US money going there appeared bleak. Even negotiations don\u2019 t seem likely.
Tillerson said the North must take \u201cconcrete steps\u201d to reduce its weapons threat before talks could occur. Six-nation nuclear negotiations with North Korea stalled in 2009. The Obama administration sought to resurrect them in 2012, but a deal to provide food aid in exchange for a nuclear freeze soon collapsed.
\u201cIn a nutshell, (North Korea) has already declared not to attend any type of talks which would discuss its nuclear abandonment, nuclear disbandment, \u201d Kim In Ryong, North Korea\u2019s deputy UN ambassador, told The Associated Press. His government declined to attend Friday\u2019s council meeting.
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AP writers Matthew Pennington and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington and Edith Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this story.<\/p>\n