Crisis level of peninsula remains unchanged despite NK missiles: think tank

The crisis level of the Korean Peninsula remained unchanged last month despite a series of short-range projectile launches by North Korea, an international think tank said in a recent report.

The International Crisis Group's global crisis tracker Crisis Watch marked the situation on the peninsula as "unchanged" while noting the five rounds of projectile launches carried out by the North in August.

(Reuters)

The group also said South Korea and US President Donald Trump played down the North's launches.

Including the two projectile launches in late July, North Korea has fired seven rounds of short-range missiles and projectiles in about a month.

The peninsula's situation was also marked "unchanged" in July but was evaluated to "improved" in June when Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held a surprise meeting at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom and agreed to resume their working-level nuclear talks.

The negotiations were expected to resume in mid-July but have not taken place yet.

On inter-Korean relations, the group said Pyongyang's failure to respond to claim the body of what appears to be a North Korean person found in the Imjin River in the border city of Paju, north of Seoul, in July highlights a "breakdown of bilateral ties." (Yonhap)