Although the United States keeps the door open for diplomacy, the Treasury Department will announce new sanctions against the North Korean regime tomorrow Friday to prevent it from using foreign assets and technology to advance its weapons programs.
The senior official described the launches as “serious escalation” by Pyongyang, but clarified that despite being part of a system with intercontinental capacity, these two specific launches “did not demonstrate” intercontinental range and distance.
He indicated that the February and March launches “probably” are aimed at testing elements of this new system before launching an intercontinental missile that could be disguised as indicating that it is a space launch.
On February 26, North Korea fired a missile into the Sea of Japan with a flight range of about 300 kilometers and a height of 620 kilometers, which was followed by another launch with similar characteristics and in the same direction on February 4. March.