SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) — United States Special Representative for North Korea Policy, Joseph Yun, met with his South Korean counterpart Kim Hong-kyun in Seoul on Wednesday (March 22) to discuss a response to the North’s weapons program.
The bilateral meeting comes one week after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s first Asia trip to Japan, South Korea and China. Yun said Tillerson has delivered a strong message to Beijing that they are concerned about China’s retaliation to the deployment of a US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system in South Korea.
China has expressed anger over South Korea’s moves to deploy the missile system, which Seoul and Washington say is designed to thwart the threat of attack from nuclear-armed North Korea, but which Beijing says is targeted at China.
The meeting also takes place as Pyongyang reportedly failed a test missile launch on Wednesday morning. The US military detected a failed North Korean missile launch attempt, with a missile exploding within seconds of its launch, a US military spokesperson said. South Korea also confirmed the apparent North Korean test launch did not go off normally.