According to South Korea’s defense ministry, the projectiles landed in the East Sea and no damage was reported.
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After initially describing the launches as being of “short-range missiles”, spokesman Moon Sang-Gyun said the ministry was still analysing their exact nature.
On Wednesday, the UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution to expand the sanctions imposed on North Korea.
“Today, the worldwide community, speaking with one voice, has sent Pyongyang a simple message: North Korea must abandon these risky programs and choose a better path for its people”, President Obama said in a statement.
The US state department said it had seen reports of the launches on Thursday and was monitoring the situation.
The new measures require mandatory inspection of all cargo going into and out of the North, while banning its exports of coal, iron and other mineral resources, a key source of hard currency that accounts for almost half of the country’s aggregate exports to China.
In Dandong, a Chinese border city that’s central to North Korea trade, authorities have blocked money transfers taking place at Chinese-owned banks.
All eyes now turn to the North’s only meaningful ally and by far its biggest trading partner, China, to see if it will enforce the sanctions.
In addition, the South Korean armed forces have intensified its surveillance of the movements of the North Korean army and have reinforced their defensive positions.
The North launched the missiles just hours after the 15-member United Nations (UN) Security Council adopted its latest resolution aimed at curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear weapon development.
Russia’s foreign ministry said Wednesday that the project would not be affected by the United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) new resolution expanding sanctions against North Korea.
A total of 212 South Korean lawmakers voted for the bill and 24 others abstained in the floor vote.
North Korea’s state media has warned that enactment of the law would result in “miserable ruin”.
The resolution tightens an arms embargo by banning sales of small arms and bars vessels suspected of carrying illegal goods for North Korea from ports.
The North claimed its January nuclear test – the fourth since 2006 – was a test of its hydrogen bomb technology. US officials say the commission is responsible for the party’s military policies, commands the North Korean military and directs the country’s military defense industries in coordination with the National Defense Commission.
The new sanctions regime “goes further than any sanctions regime in two decades”, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said after the vote.
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South Korean President Park Geun-Hye said she hoped the “unprecedentedly tough” sanctions would push Pyongyang into finally abandoning its nuclear weapons program.
