North Korea fired a volley of ballistic missiles towards the sea on Thursday, hours after US President Donald Trump said he intended to meet leader Kim Jong Un this year.

Japan’s government and coastguard first reported a single suspected ballistic missile, with the coastguard saying the projectile had already fallen and public broadcaster NHK reporting that it appeared to land outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

Fuller accounts followed. South Korea’s military detected the launch of around 10 short-range missiles from the Pyongyang area towards the body of water Seoul calls the East Sea and Japan calls the Sea of Japan, the Yonhap news agency reported. Japan’s Defense Ministry said the North had fired “multiple” ballistic missiles, each travelling an estimated 320 kilometres and reaching a maximum altitude of about 90 kilometres before splashing down outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone. A map released by Japan showed the flight paths appearing to hug North Korea’s north-eastern coast.

Diplomatic overture rebuffed

Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday that he would meet Kim this year, without offering details. The two last met in 2019, during Trump’s first term.

Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s influential sister, appeared to dismiss the approach. She said on Wednesday that the United States’ “hostile policy” towards North Korea had not changed, and, in remarks reported by Hiru News, that there had been no recent communication between the two leaders.

Drills scaled back

The launches came as annual military exercises by South Korea and the United States were cut short, ending on Friday after Trump ordered a substantial reduction in US participation. Pyongyang routinely condemns the joint drills as rehearsals for invasion, and the scaling back had been read in Seoul and Washington as an attempt to create space for renewed diplomacy.

Thursday’s barrage suggests North Korea is not yet reciprocating. The pattern — a conciliatory signal from Washington answered by a short-range weapons test — has recurred through previous rounds of engagement, with Pyongyang using launches to assert leverage rather than close off talks entirely.

Sources