South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) has suggested that North Korea’s provocative launch on Thursday of what are likely two short-range ballistic missiles may be timed to precede President Joe Biden’s upcoming press briefing.

Several individuals within the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee told reporters that the NIS did, in fact, share such a view to key committee members via telephone following the launch.

“The National Intelligence Service seems to be viewing President Biden’s (upcoming) press conference as one of the possible reasons (behind the latest North Korean missile launch),” one of the committee members told the local newswire service Yonhap News Agency.

“(The NIS) is also considering the possibility that the reason lies in the North’s protest against the United Nations’ (recent) adoption of a resolution against North Korean human rights and the extradition of North Korean businessman Mun Chol-myong to the U.S.”

Another committee member said: “It can be assumed that North Korea tried to demonstrate its presence to the Biden administration, saying ‘we are here.’”

North Korea fired two projectiles, which are believed to be short-range ballistic missiles, into the East Sea from the town of Hamju, South Hamgyong Province. They flew roughly two hundred eighty miles with an altitude of thirty-seven miles, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Before this launch, the isolated East Asian nation conducted its sixth and final nuclear test in late 2017 and had since maintained a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile testing. It would mark the Kim Jong-un regime’s first firing of ballistic missiles since the beginning of the Biden administration and would be in violation of the UN Security Council resolutions.

Earlier in the week, Biden appeared not to be overly concerned with North Korea’s launch of short-range missiles off its west coast on Sunday.

“We’ve learned nothing much has changed,” he told reporters on Tuesday before boarding Air Force One, adding that North Korea’s actions weren’t considered to be a provocation.

He later said in Washington: “According to the defense department, it’s business as usual. There’s no new wrinkle in what they did.”

The president’s senior officials also noted that the weekend launch was not in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.

“We’re also aware of military activity last weekend by DPRK that is not sanctioned under UN Security Council resolutions, restricting the ballistic missile program,” one senior administration official, who did not wish to be named, said in a press briefing.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged that the United States will utilize both pressure and diplomacy and will have an “open mind” when shaping its overall policy on the reclusive country. 

“We’re looking at everything. … There (are) different kinds of pressure points that might convince North Korea to make progress, and we are looking at diplomacy, and what different types of diplomacy might take,” he said during a virtual roundtable session with local reporters in Seoul.

“The goal is to really figure out how we can have the best chance in resolving the challenges posed by North Korea to us and unfortunately to its own people. … We have a very open mind about it and that open mind is being informed by allies like South Korea,” he added.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.