Japanese envoy's secret Pyongyang trip more worrying than missile launches
Missile tests by Pyongyang appear overshadowed by the unannounced trip to North Korea by an adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
The launch of three missiles yesterday by Pyongyang comes at a time when a small crack seems to have appeared in the international show of unity against North Korea's development of nuclear weapons, after the "secret" visit to Pyongyang last week by a special adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The firing of the missiles follows recent rhetoric from the Kim Jong-un regime threatening nuclear strikes against the US and moving the medium-range Musudan missiles to North Korea's east coast. The warnings led the United States, South Korea and Japan to boost defences and raised concern in Beijing, Pyongyang's biggest ally.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye has not convened a National Security Council meeting because the projectiles did not appear to be Musudan, said Kim Haing, her spokeswoman.
The launches also came a day after Abe's aide Isao Iijima left Pyongyang following an unannounced four-day trip.
Tokyo's decision to engage with North Korea was apparently known initially to only a handful of officials at the prime minister's office; Tokyo had not even notified its regional partners of Iijima's travel plans, to barely concealed irritation in Seoul and Washington.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry called Iijima's trip "unhelpful" in co-ordinating international efforts to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue, as Glyn Davies, top US envoy on North Korea, travelled to South Korea, China and Japan last week.