The rockets reportedly flew some 500 kilometers before landing in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) northeast of the city of Wonsan in South Korea, Yonhap news agency reported.
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North Korea has declared that it will liquidate South Korean assets located in the North in retaliation for Seoul’s announcement of additional sanctions.
An association representing the 120 firms operating factories in Kaesong, which lies just across the North Korean border, estimated the value of the assets left behind at 820 billion won ($663 million).
North Korea was hit by strengthened United Nations sanctions last week in response to its recent fourth nuclear test and long-range rocket launch.
South Korea pulled out of the jointly-operated industrial zone in February, after North Korea’s latest long-range missile launch of a satellite.
Pyongyang’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, which was behind the statement, also made a vague threat to Seoul, promising to deal “a devastating end to [President] Park Geun-hye and her party”.
The unilateral measures announced by Seoul on Tuesday included urging South Korean citizens to boycott North Korean restaurants operating overseas.
The Korean Peninsula has been locked in a cycle of military tensions since the 1950-1953 Korean War, which ended in an armistice.
The allies began their largest ever annual military drills Monday, but even in previous years the North has accused Seoul and Washington of plotting a resumption of the 1950-53 Korean War. The South tracked the projectiles and is monitoring the situation, it said.
Media reports have said the Chinese port of Rizhao in the eastern Shandong province also barred another North Korean ship from docking at the port.
China’s customs authorities are likely to inspect cargo destined for and coming from North Korea via the North’s state-run airline Air Koryo, the source said.
South Korea’s defence ministry said it did not believe the North had successfully miniaturised a nuclear warhead or deployed a functioning intercontinental ballistic missile.
“I’d say the young man needs to pay more attention to the North Korean people and taking care of them, than in pursuing these sorts of reckless capabilities”, Kirby said.
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The claim by North Korea to have thermonuclear weapons and be capable of firing nuclear missiles at the United States fits a long pattern of empty bluffs, retired US Ambassador Chas Freeman, a leading US expert on Northeast Asia, told Sputnik.
