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South Korea's Hyunmoo-2A (left) and USFK's ATACMS missiles are fired simultaneously during a joint missile exercise in July 2017. (provided by the Joint Chiefs of Staff)

Nine days after the summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and US President Joe Biden, North Korea made its first public response to the outcome of the summit by printing a personally signed article. While the article signaled Pyongyang's displeasure with South Korea and the US, the author's lack of rank and formality suggests that it's a placeholder intended to keep Pyongyang's options open and buy time until it makes an official response.

"The termination step is a stark reminder of the [US'] hostile policy toward the DPRK and its shameful double-dealing," said Kim Myong-chol, an international affairs critic, in an article criticizing the South Korea and US's announcement at the summit that they've ended their missile guidelines. The article, titled "What Is Aim of Termination of 'Missile Guidelines,'" was published by North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Monday.

"It is [an] apparently deliberate and hostile act that the US lifted the firing range limit, not content with the removal of the warhead weight limit through the approval of several revised 'missile guidelines,'" Kim said in the article, which was not published in the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper that's required reading for North Koreans.

"[The US] is engrossed in confrontation despite its lip-service to dialogue," Kim wrote. "Lots of countries now view the [US'] key DPRK policy, namely 'pragmatic approach' and 'maximum flexibility' produced by the Biden administration with much effort as just trickery."

"The [US'] act of giving free 'missile' rein to South Korea is all meant to spark off [an] arms race on the Korean Peninsula and in its surrounding areas and check the development of the DPRK. The US, at the same time, seeks to [. . .] legitimately realize the deployment of intermediate-range missiles targeting countries around the DPRK."

In other words, Kim said, the termination of the missile guidelines is an American gambit aimed at provoking an arms race in Northeast Asia and laying the groundwork for deploying intermediate-range missiles in South Korea that would target China and Russia.

"We will counter the US on the principle of strength for strength and good faith in kind. The escalated tension on the Korean peninsula will lead to instability of the forces threatening the DPRK," Kim wrote.

In a speech at the 8th Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) Congress in January, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said that "the key to establishing new North Korea-US relations is for the US to retract its policy of hostility toward North Korea. We will continue dealing with the US on the principle of strength for strength and good faith for good faith."

In October 2019, Kim Myong-gil, North Korea's roving ambassador and chief envoy to working-level talks with the US at the time, said that the US' hostile policy toward North Korea includes sanctions, joint military exercises with South Korea, and the deployment of advanced weaponry, which he said "openly threaten [North Korea's] right to life and to development."

Kim Jong-un himself asked South Korea to suspend joint military exercises with the US and stop bringing in cutting-edge military equipment in his speech at the WPK Congress this year.

While Kim Myong-chol's article reflects the thinking of the North Korean authorities, the article doesn't seem to represent an official response given Kim's lack of rank or official status.

More specifically, Kim is only cited as an "international affairs critic," not one of the high-ranking officials in the government and WPK who generally release statements to the US, such as WPK Central Committee Vice Department Director Kim Yo-jong or First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui.

"This was a personal article rather than one based on an official position or title. We are keeping a careful eye on the North Korean position," said Lee Jong-ju, spokesperson for South Korea's Ministry of Unification, in the daily press briefing Monday.

Kim Myong-chol criticized South Korean President Moon Jae-in's "disgusting" announcement of the termination of the missile guidelines, though he only referred to him as "the South Korean chief executive" rather than by name.

"We consider it regrettable for such disrespectful language to be used about our head of state," South Korean Minister of National Defense Suh Wook said during an appearance before the National Assembly's National Defense Committee.

But Kim Myong-chol added the caveat that "The target of the DPRK is not the ROK [South Korean] army but the US," and the KCNA released the English-language translation of the article before the Korean-language article.

"The primary target [of the article] appears to be not us but the Americans," said a senior official in the South Korean government.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]