By Kang Seung-woo
Will North Korea further escalate tensions after it fired short-range missiles over the weekend? The answer, according to analysts, is “unlikely,” because it knows that any further provocations would entail additional sanctions.
“North Korea fired the missiles in response to the joint South Korean-U.S. joint naval drill,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at the Sejong Institute.
The two-day joint exercise involving the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz took place off the east coast on May 13 and 14.
He said that the Kim Jong-un regime might launch short-range missiles a few times in the near future, but will not fire mid-and long-range ones to avoid further U.N. sanctions.
“Recently, Kim Jong-un has been seen trying to boost the economy, but should the North launch longer range missiles, it will face tougher punishment that may threaten the regime’s existence,” he said.
Shin Beom-Chul, a director of North Korea Military Studies at the Korea Institute of Defense Analyses, also said sticking with short-range missiles shows that the North was “considering the aftermath it may face.”
Following its rocket launch in December and nuclear test in February, North Korea was slapped with increased U.N. sanctions.
Meanwhile, as a delegation of South Korean businessmen plans to visit the closed Gaeseong Industrial Complex on Thursday, it remains to be seen if the North will acknowledge them.
North Korea has shut down the Gaeseong Industrial Complex since April 3 in protest of the joint South Korean-U.S. military exercises. Additionally, the nuclear test-triggered fresh international sanctions and it has rejected the South’s offers to resolve the issue.
However, Pyongyang claimed last week that it already expressed on May 3 its intention to allow South Korean officials to enter the industrial park and retrieve materials, which Seoul denied was true, so the sincerity of its intentions will be tested further.
The industrial zone, which uses cheap North Korean labor combined with the South’s technology and capital, opened after the first summit between late South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and his counterpart Kim Jong-il in June 2000. It is one of the last symbols of inter-Korean rapprochement.