Reported by Al Jazeera
Kim Yo Jong refuses dialogue with US after denying responsibility for theft of more than $6bn in crypto assets from Binance.
North Korea has fired several missiles into the Sea of Japan, according to South Korea’s military, hours after Pyongyang denied allegations that it was behind the theft of more than $6bn in crypto assets from Binance.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Wednesday that it had detected the launch of several missiles from the Sondok area on North Korea’s eastern coast towards the Sea of Japan.
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It said authorities in South Korea and the United States were analysing the details of the launches.
The tests marked Pyongyang’s fourth such weapons launch in a month. They came a day after North Korea denied involvement in the Binance hack, dismissing an FBI announcement that North Korean hackers were responsible as “a trite provocation”.
Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, said on Friday that hackers stole more than $6bn in what appears to be the largest cryptocurrency heist on record.
The FBI later said North Korean hackers had orchestrated the theft, attributing it to a hacking group known as TraderTraitor, which was also behind a $1.5bn hack of the Bybit exchange last year.
Early on Wednesday, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said Pyongyang viewed the FBI announcement as “an extension of Washington’s invariable hostile policy toward” North Korea.
She ruled out dialogue with Washington until the US abandoned that policy.
“It is our clear stand that we have no need to sit face to face with such unreliable and hostile persons,” she said. “The choice for peace includes dialogue, of course, but this is not surely equated with national interests for us.”
US President Donald Trump said in August that he plans to meet Kim Jong Un later this year, seeking to revive the bond he claims to have forged with the North Korean leader during his first term.
Trump said it was important to “get along” with Kim, adding that Pyongyang had 57 “very powerful” nuclear weapons.
Previous rounds of talks between…