North Korea launched multiple missiles toward the sea on Wednesday, South Korea’s military said, just hours after Pyongyang declared it saw no need to resume diplomacy with Washington amid accusations that North Korean hackers were behind the massive cryptocurrency theft at Binance.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the launches heading toward North Korea’s eastern waters. South Korean and US authorities were still analyzing details of the launches, and Seoul said it remains ready to repel any potential provocations.
Earlier in the day, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and a senior official in Pyongyang, again rejected an FBI announcement that North Korean hackers were responsible for the Binance hack, calling it “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,” Kim Yo Jong said. “The choice for peace includes dialogue of course, but this is not surely equated with national interests for us.”
On Tuesday, she had already dismissed the FBI’s announcement as “a trite provocation.”
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, said Friday that hackers stole more than $6 billion, in what appears to be the biggest cryptocurrency heist on record. The FBI later attributed the theft to North Korean hackers, naming a group known as TraderTraitor, which was also blamed for a $1.5 billion hack of the Bybit exchange last year.
Analysts believe North Korea is using the missile launches to pressure the United States into dropping what it calls hostile policies and offering concessions as a condition for restoring contact between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. Pyongyang has stepped up weapons testing in recent months in what is widely seen as an effort to build leverage, after Trump signaled interest in reopening diplomacy with Kim.
The missile launches came as vote counting continued in the US midterm elections.
New warship and border tensions
Also on Wednesday, North Korea’s state KCNA news agency released a photo showing parts of a warship under construction that would likely become the country’s largest naval vessel. KCNA said Kim Jong Un expressed satisfaction during a visit this week to the Nampho Shipyard, describing the ship as “incomparably huge” compared with the North’s existing 5,000-ton destroyers. Kim had previously said North Korea planned to build a 10,000-ton strategic guided missile cruiser.
Relations between the two Koreas have also worsened since mine blasts at their shared border in September wounded three South Korean soldiers. Seoul has accused North Korea of planting the mines south of the border and demanded an apology, while Pyongyang has denied responsibility and warned of retaliation if provoked. North Korea has since threatened to resume propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts and deploy new weapons systems along the border.
