Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit, North Korea Launches More Missiles — SkimNews
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- North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles from Wonsan on September 20, the first flying roughly 450 km and the second more than 600 km; both are presumed to be from the Hwasong-11 series and it was North Korea's second launch in eight days.
- Kim Yo Jong warned two days earlier that North Korea must respond to U.S.-led drills like the Pacific Vanguard naval exercise near Guam with measures at least as forceful and that its nuclear buildup would not change; she also rejected renewed denuclearization calls at an IAEA conference on September 17.
- The launches fall just four days before Trump's September 24 summit with Xi Jinping in Washington — Xi's first trip to the U.S. capital in 10 years and his first official state visit since 2015 — and coincide with the opening of UN General Assembly week.
- South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said a mine blast during a clearing operation in the DMZ on September 21 injured three South Korean officers, with the reconnaissance battalion commander reportedly suffering an ankle amputation, the first such incident to seriously wound troops south of the MDL since August 2015.
- Lee's recently announced Unification Ministry plan to support North Korea building hospitals now faces fresh scrutiny, as Pyongyang has stressed it will not renew inter-Korean relations and Lee acknowledged on September 18 that the North 'is clearly refusing to communicate with South Korea.'
Why it matters: North Korea fired its second missile volley in eight days just four days before Trump's September 24 summit with Xi in Washington, paired with Kim Yo Jong's IAEA rejection of denuclearization. The same week, a DMZ blast wounded three South Korean officers for the first time since 2015 — undercutting Seoul's new hospital-building overture to a regime saying 'no thanks.'
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