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| Vehicles carrying the North Korean military's weapons presumed to be cruise missiles are unveiled a military parade in Pyongyang on Jan.14 to mark the eighth congress of the country's ruling Workers' Party of Korea in this photo released by the country's state-run Korean Central News Agency the following day. Yonhap |
By Jung Da-min
The belated confirmation from the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) on North Korea's firing of two cruise missiles last Sunday has brought criticism that the South Korean government is failing to gain public confidence in its national security policy.
The JCS said Wednesday that North Korea fired two cruise missiles off the west coast from the country's western port county of Onchon early Sunday, confirming related reports made hours earlier in the U.S. media, which citied two senior officials with the Joe Biden administration.
A JCS official told reporters that South Korean and U.S. authorities have been analyzing the situation and closely monitoring related moves but refused to disclose other details such as type, flight range or apogee of the missiles.
Defense watchers said the government's silence on the North Korea missiles is seen as its efforts to keep the momentum for dialogue with North Korea by not provoking the reclusive regime. They said it was likely that the South Korean and U.S. authorities had agreed earlier not to announce Sunday's missile launches by the North, but with different intentions.
"While it is widely believed that the South Korean government did not want to give a North Korea an excuse to engage in a hostility toward the South, the Biden administration had been intentionally ignoring the North as part of a negotiation strategy," said Park Won-gon, a professor with the Ewha Womans University's Department of North Korea Studies.
"Many members of the Biden administration had worked previously for the Barack Obama administration and have experienced negotiations with the North. They have a strong idea that they should not be dragged into the North's pace and this has led to the Biden administration's intended silence over North Korea issues until this time."
Following the reports on Sunday's missile launches by Pyongyang, Biden told reporters Tuesday local time that "nothing much has changed" despite the firing of rockets and it was not considered to be a provocation.
Park said while the Biden administration has been avoiding publicly discussing its North Korea policy, it has instead been sending its messages to the reclusive regime indirectly through media reports.
"The message from the Biden administration to the reclusive regime this time was that Pyongyang should not conduct further provocations, although it would not take the cruise missile tests as a provocation," Park said.
But defense watchers said the South Korean government should have announced the North's latest missile launches regardless of diplomatic reasons. They said the government could have avoided unnecessary controversy if it had made an announcement once after detecting the missile launches and said the cruise missile launches were not in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
"The government made the situation worse by not announcing the North's missile launches when it first detected them as it has offered a reason for the country's opposition bloc to attack the Moon Jae-in government's security policy," said Shin Jong-woo, a senior researcher with the Korea Defense and Security Forum.
Shin said the event could not be a "secret" in the first place when many officials with South Korean and U.S. authorities have been informed of it.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is expected to present outline for its North Korea policy soon, with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin holding meetings recently with their East Asian counterparts. According to a Reuters report citing U.S. officials, the Biden administration is close to completing its review of North Korea policies and U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan will hold a meeting with his counterparts in South Korea and Japan next week to discuss them.
