North Korea accuses US of ‘double-dealing’ over South Korean missiles

North Korean state media accused the Biden administration Sunday of “shameful double-dealing” by scrapping an agreement limiting the range of South Korea’s ballistic missiles.

President Biden and his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae In announced the termination of the so-called “Revised Missile Guidelines” in a single sentence of their joint statement following a meeting at the White House earlier this month. The guidelines were initially implemented in 1979 in the hope of preventing a nuclear arms race on the Korean Peninsula. They had been revised several times since. According to Foreign Policy magazine, the restrictions initially limited the range of Seoul’s missiles to 180 kilometers (111.8 miles). The most recent change to the distance guidelines, in 2012, capped South Korea’s ballistic missile range at 800 kilometers (497.1 miles).