North Korea Fires More Short Range Missiles After Saying They Are Willing to Resume Talks with the U.S.

It is business as usual on the Korean peninsula:

North Korea fired two short-range projectiles from a western region toward the East Sea on Tuesday, South Korea’s military said, just hours after the communist nation offered to resume nuclear talks with the United States.

The projectiles were fired at 6:53 a.m. and 7:12 a.m. from areas in the city of Kaechon, South Pyongan Province, about 80 kilometers north of the capital, Pyongyang, in a northeastern direction, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

Both flew around 330 km across the peninsula, reaching a maximum altitude of around 50 to 60 km, the JCS said, while declining to confirm if the two projectiles landed in the East Sea or how fast they flew. The JCS added that South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities are analyzing their exact type. (…….)

The firings came just hours after the North’s First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui expressed a willingness to resume denuclearization talks with the U.S. in late September and demanded that Washington come up with a new proposal acceptable to Pyongyang.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but as I have been saying for months, the North Koreans are going to push for the dropping sanctions on Kaesong and other cross border projects for little to nothing in return. If they don’t get a deal by the end of the year I expect them to start testing their longer range systems in order to create a “crisis” during the Presidential campaign season next year.

Creating such a crisis would undermine President Trump’s foreign policy credentials that his Democratic rivals can attack him with. So it will be interesting to see if President Trump decides to cut a deal to keep Pyongyang quiet next year. If not things could be very interesting on the peninsula next year.