Trump Says Kim Won't Break `Promise to Me' After Weapons Test

President Donald Trump brushed off news of a possible weapons test by North Korea, vowing that leader Kim Jong Un “will do nothing to interfere” and that a denuclearization deal with the U.S. “will happen.”

 s.The move was seen as Kim’s latest and most provocative signal of frustration over talks with Trump following the pair’s failed summit in Vietnam in February.

The significance of the test was difficult to assess as South Korea revised its account of the nature and scale of the weapons discharged from the eastern port of Wonsan just after 9 a.m. Saturday local time. 

After first calling them “missiles,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff later changed its description to “projectiles,” saying greater clarity would require more analysis.

The details are key since Trump has cited Kim’s self-imposed freeze on missile and nuclear weapons tests to support his decision to continue negotiations with the North Korean leader. South Korea’s descriptions of the incident suggested shorter-range rockets or artillery that would be less likely for the U.S. to interpret as a violation of Kim’s pledge to refrain from testing.

“We are aware of North Korea’s actions tonight. We will continue to monitor as necessary,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said. National Security Adviser John Bolton briefed the president about the launch, according to a senior administration official, who asked for anonymity to discuss the matter. The Yonhap News Agency later reported that the weapons fired were “not missiles,” citing unidentified lawmakers briefed by intelligence officials.

“Missiles are projectiles, but South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff might be using ‘projectile’ to imply an unguided rocket, like one of North Korea’s older rocket artillery systems,” said Ankit Panda, an adjunct senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists. “This could also be a politicized attempt to make the word ‘missile’ not so prominent, in case that creates the kind of news cycle that Trump doesn’t want.”

 ”Kim has expressed increasing frustration since Trump refused his demands for sanctions relief and walked out of their second summit in Hanoi in February. After a year of talks, Kim has made only a pledge to “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” without defining the phrase.

The North Korean leader accused the U.S. of “bad faith” during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok last week. He had earlier told North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly that he would wait “with patience till the end of this year” for the U.S. to make a better offer.

“The range they have would only be really good for hitting targets across the border in South Korea,” said Nathan Hunt, an independent defense researcher. “It could be seen that this was a signal to the ROK that the DPRK is losing patience,” referring to South Korea’s and North Korea’s formal names.

— With assistance by John Harney, Justin Sink, and Natnicha Chuwiruch