Posted By: RM | NwoReport
North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the sea early Sunday, Seoul’s military said, the seventh such launch in two weeks /AFP
North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the sea early Sunday, Seoul’s military said, the seventh such launch in two weeks, just hours after a nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier concluded joint drills off the Korean peninsula.
Seoul, Tokyo and Washington have ramped up combined naval exercises in recent weeks, infuriating Pyongyang which sees them as rehearsals for invasion and justifies its blitz of missile launches as necessary “countermeasures”.
With talks long stalled, Pyongyang has doubled down on its banned weapons programmes, firing an intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan last week, with officials and analysts warning it has completed preparations for another nuclear test.
South Korea’s military said Sunday it had “detected two short-range ballistic missiles between 0148 and 0158 (1648-1658 GMT) fired from the Munchon area in Kangwon province towards the East Sea”, also known as the Sea of Japan.
The missiles “flew approximately 350 kilometres (217 miles) at an altitude of 90 kilometres”, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, calling the launches a “serious provocation”.
Tokyo also confirmed the launches, with the coast guard saying the missiles had landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
Japanese senior vice defence minister Toshiro Ino said Tokyo was analysing the missiles, adding that “either one of them has the possibility of being a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM)”.
