South Korea’s defence ministry said the two missiles were fired around 5:20am and flew some 500km, before landing in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) off the North Korean port city of Wonsan, a ministry spokesman said.
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The news came amid the South Korea’s Ministry of Unification’s (MoU) announcement on Wednesday and again on Thursday that the ministry is considering resuming humanitarian aid to North Korea, which stopped after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in January. “We will continuously take the planned special measures for hastening the miserable end of the Park Geun-hye group of traitors by dealing fatal political, military and economic blows to it”, a North Korean government spokesman said.
North Korea is also livid about stepped-up United Nations sanctions adopted last week following its recent nuclear test and long-range missile launch.
The North also announced it had scrapped all agreements with the South on commercial exchange projects and would “liquidate” South Korean assets left behind in its territory. The launch comes amid the biggest ever joint US-South Korean war drills, which the North views as infringing on its sovereignty.
“We will launch an all-out offensive to decisively counter the U.S. and its followers’ hysterical nuclear war moves”, a newsreader on the state-run North Korean KRT news channel said at the time.
North Korea has a large stockpile of short-range missiles and is developing long-range and intercontinental missiles. The KN-08, which North Korea showed off in 2012, is said to be capable of being launched from a road-mobile vehicle, which would make it hard to monitor via satellite.
Such firings are not uncommon when animosity rises on the Korean Peninsula. More than 300,000 South Korean and some 15,000 American troops are involved in the so-called Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises that began on Monday and are set to last until April 30.
And state media on Wednesday published photos of leader Kim Jong-Un posing with what was claimed to be a miniaturised nuclear warhead.
North Korea has claimed its miniaturised nuclear weapon technology is now small enough to attach a warhead to a ballistic rocket.
South Korea’s defense ministry later added a statement also doubting that North Korea has possession of a miniaturized warhead.
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He said the North Korean leader, who is thought to be in his early 30s, needs to pay more attention to the needs of his people rather pursue “reckless capabilities”.
