North Korea launched about 10 short-range ballistic missiles towards the waters off the country’s east coast on Thursday, South Korea’s military said on Thursday.
This comes just a day after Pyongyang dismissed US scaling back a major military exercise with South Korea.
The missiles were launched towards waters off North Korea’s east coast, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
South Korea’s presidential National Security Council also reportedly held an emergency meeting following the launches. It urged North Korea to halt ballistic missile tests banned under UN Security Council resolutions.
Earlier, Japanese and South Korean officials had said that North Korea launched an unidentified projectile, suspected to be a ballistic missile, towards the waters off the Korean peninsula’s eastern coast.
According to Japan’s defence ministry, a warning was issued through the coast guard at 5.08pm local time, advising vessels to remain alert for possible falling debris, NK News reported at the time.
A second alert, issued 11 minutes later, said the missile appeared to have “already fallen”, indicating it was unlikely to have been a long-range missile.
The Japanese coast guard said the projectile was a possible ballistic missile.
Pyongyang previously conducted short-range ballistic missile launches on 6 August and 12 August.
South Korea’s military earlier also detected the launch of an unidentified projectile from North Korea towards the eastern coast on Thursday, the state news agency Yonhap reported.
The launches came a day after Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, dismissed US president Donald Trump’s scaling back a major military exercise with South Korea, saying it remained provocative despite the reduction.
“We think it’s not worth making comments on that and we have no interest in it at all,” Ms Kim said. “The provocative, aggressive nature of the drills won’t change even though their duration and size were reduced.”
Earlier, South Korea’s military said its joint exercise with the US, dubbed Ulchi Freedom Shield, was ending this Friday, six days earlier than planned, after Mr Trump requested it be shortened.
North Korea has frequently reacted to joint US-South Korea military drills with weapons tests and strong rhetoric. Pyongyang views the exercises as preparations for an attack and says they justify strengthening its nuclear capabilities. Washington and Seoul maintain that the training is purely defensive.
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