South Korea’s military said North Korea launched two suspected ballistic missiles into the sea on Monday, its fourth such launch this month, with the apparent goal of demonstrating its military might amid paused diplomacy with the US and pandemic border closures.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff of South Korea said the North likely fired two short-range ballistic missiles from an area near Pyongyang’s international airport in Sunan. It said the missiles were launched four minutes apart and flew 380 kilometres (236 miles) at a maximum altitude of 42 kilometres (26 miles) before landing in waters off the country’s northeastern coast.

The missiles do not pose an immediate threat to US personnel, territory, or allies, according to the US Indo-Pacific Command, but they do highlight the destabilising impact of the North’s “illicit” weapons programme. Nobuo Kishi, Japan’s defence minister, said the missiles landed outside the country’s exclusive economic zone, and Hirokazu Matsuno, the chief cabinet secretary, condemned North Korea’s actions as threats to peace.

President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, who is visiting the United Arab Emirates, has directed officials to make “all possible efforts to ensure stability” on the Korean Peninsula, according to his office. Members of the president’s National Security Council also emphasised the importance of reviving nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang, according to the report.

North Korea conducted two flight tests of a rumoured hypersonic missile on January 5 and 11, as well as a test-fire of ballistic missiles from a train on Friday, in apparent retaliation for new sanctions imposed by the Biden administration last week for its continued test launches.

In recent months, North Korea has increased its testing of new, potentially nuclear-capable missiles that are manoeuvrable and fly at low altitudes, potentially improving their chances of evading and defeating regional missile defences.

According to some experts, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is reverting to a tried-and-true strategy of threatening his neighbours and the United States with missile launches and outrageous threats before engaging in negotiations to extract concessions.

In 2019, a US-led diplomatic effort to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme failed after the Trump administration rejected the North’s demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear weapons.

Since then, Kim has pledged to build up his nuclear arsenal, which he sees as his best chance of survival.

His government has so far rejected the Biden administration’s call for no-strings-attached dialogue, claiming that Washington must first abandon its “hostile policy,” which Pyongyang refers to as sanctions and joint military exercises between the US and South Korea.

According to Kim Dong-yub, a professor at Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies, the North may have launched another missile to put pressure on Washington, and it could ramp up its testing activity after vowing to take stronger action in response to what it perceives as US hostility.

In response to the North’s earlier tests this month, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on five North Koreans last week for their roles in obtaining equipment and technology for the North’s missile programmes.

The State Department imposed sanctions on another North Korean, a Russian man, and a Russian company for their broader support of North Korea’s WMD activities, and the Biden administration also stated that it would seek additional UN sanctions in response to the North’s continued nuclear tests.

The sanctions were announced just hours after North Korean state media reported that Kim Jong Un oversaw a successful test of a hypersonic missile on Tuesday, the country’s second such test in a week, and claimed that the weapon would significantly boost the country’s “war deterrent.”

In apparent retaliation for the new US sanctions linked to the hypersonic tests, the North fired two short-range ballistic missiles from a train on Friday. The test came just hours after the North’s Foreign Ministry chastised the Biden administration over the new sanctions and threatened “stronger and more certain” retaliation if Washington continues to be confrontational.

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