N Korea launches multiple missiles toward the sea

North Korea yesterday launched multiple missiles toward the sea, South Korea’s military said, hours after Pyongyang said it saw no need to resume diplomacy with Washington in protest of accusations that North Korean hackers were behind a cryptocurrency heist at Binance.

Observers said North Korea was likely pressuring the US to drop what it calls its hostility against the North and offer concessions if it wants to restore ties between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the launches of several missiles fired toward North Korea’s eastern waters, adding that South Korean and US authorities were analyzing details of the launches.

People sit in front of a television showing file footage of a North Korean missile launch at a train station in Seoul yesterday.

Photo: AFP

South Korea maintains a readiness to repel any potential provocations by North Korea under a solid alliance with the US, it said.

The launches came a day after North Korea denied involvement in the hack at Binance, dismissing as “a trite provocation” an FBI announcement that North Korean hackers were responsible for the incident.

Kim’s sister, senior official Kim Yo-jong, issued a statement early yesterday saying Pyongyang views the FBI announcement as “an extension of Washington’s invariable hostile policy toward” North Korea.

“It is our clear stand that we have no need to sit face to face with such unreliable and hostile persons,” she said. “The choice for peace includes dialogue of course, but this is not surely equated with national interests for us.”

Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, on Friday said that hackers stole more than US$6 billion in what appears to be the largest cryptocurrency heist on record. The FBI later said the theft was orchestrated by North Korean hackers, attributing the attack to a hacking group known as TraderTraitor, which was also behind a US$1.5 billion hack of the Bybit exchange last year.

North Korea has accelerated its weapons tests in a likely bid to increase its leverage in potential diplomacy with the US after Trump expressed his eagerness to restore diplomacy with Kim Jong-un.