SEOUL (AFP) – North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles but one launch failed, South Korea’s military said Monday, a day after Pyongyang warned of “fatal consequences” following major joint exercises in the South.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said the military had detected two launches, the first at 5.05am and the second around 10 minutes later.
“The short-range ballistic missile launched at around 05:05 flew approximately 600 kilometres (km),” it said, adding the second one travelled 120km.
JCS spokesperson Lee Sung-jun said the second missile appeared to fly abnormally in an early stage of flight, adding that if it had exploded in mid-air, its trajectory indicates debris could have landed over North Korea.
Seoul’s military has “strengthened surveillance and vigilance in preparation for further launches”, JCS said in a statement.
The JCS’s Lee declined to comment when asked whether the North’s latest launch could have been a test of missiles intended for delivery to Russia.
The launch also comes after Pyongyang on Sunday denounced joint military exercises by South Korea, Japan and the United States (US), calling them an “Asian version of NATO” and warning of “fatal consequences”.
The three-day “Freedom Edge” drills, which ran from Thursday to Saturday last week, included preparation in ballistic missile and air defences, anti-submarine warfare and defensive cyber training.
They also involved Washington’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, Tokyo’s guided-missile destroyer JS Atago and Seoul’s KF-16 fighter jet.
Pyongyang has always decried similar combined exercises as rehearsals for an invasion, but Seoul defended the latest exercises, saying they were a continuation of defensive drills held regularly for years.
Last week, North Korea claimed to have successfully tested a multiple warhead missile, but the South said that launch ended in a mid-air explosion.
Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with the North ramping up weapons testing while bombarding the South with balloons full of trash.
