WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday the Biden administration remained concerned that North Korea was moving forward with another intercontinental ballistic missile test .
“I had feared for some time that North Korea was conducting what would be its seventh nuclear test,” Sullivan said during an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation.
“I don’t see any immediate indication that this is going to happen, but it would not be surprising if North Korea conducts another test of its intercontinental ballistic missile capability,” he said.
In June, North Korea fired two short-range missiles off its east coast as Sullivan met with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts in Tokyo.
A spokesman for North Korea’s Ministry of National Defense said at the time that the exercises conducted by South Korea and the United States were heightening military tension in the region and that its forces would respond to “any kind of protests or provocations of enemies”.
North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs are banned by United Nations Security Council resolutions that have sanctioned the country.
Diplomatic efforts to reduce tensions or persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear arsenal have stalled.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Hugh Lawson)