North Korea Fires Missiles as Trump Moves to Meet Kim Jong Un

2 hours ago 2

August 20, 2026 | 05:35 pm

Illustration of missile. Wikipedia.

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - North Korea fired around 10 short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea on Thursday, South Korea's military said.

Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North fired the missiles "from its Pyongyang area."

Earlier, the Japanese prime minister's office and the country's Coast Guard also said they detected the suspected launch.

The incident came hours after US President Donald Trump said he would meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later this year.

US-South Korea military drills shortened

The latest missile launches also come as South Korea and the US continue military drills that are set to end Friday after Trump's order to significantly reduce US participation.

Pyongyang has long denounced US-South Korea joint exercises as invasion rehearsals, often responding with missile launches.

Trump described the war games as "inappropriate and hostile," on Wednesday as he announced he would meet Kim later this year,

"These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been president, has been unthreatening and respectful," he wrote on Truth Social.

Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of Kim Jong Un, dismissed Trump’s move, saying, "The provocative, aggressive nature of the drills won't change even though their duration and size were reduced."

"If the US calculates that it can propagate its recent measure as the one of so-called good faith, they will not get the desired answer," she added.

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