North Korea Test-launches Two Ballistic Missiles After Drills End

North Korea test-fired two ballistic missile, a day after North promised an offensive responses to a new military drill with South Korea and Japan, South Korea’s military said on Monday.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles were launched 10 minutes apart in a northeastern direction from the town of Jangyon in southeastern North Korea. North Korea typically test-fires missiles toward its eastern waters

South Korean media said an unidentified South Korean military source reported that it was highly likely the second missile crashed in an inland area of the North. Possible damages on the North’s ground weren’t immediately reported.

The reports said the first missile landed in the waters off the North’s eastern city of Chongjin.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed South Korea's firm readiness to repel any provocations by North Korea in conjunction with the military alliance with the United States.

The launch came two days after South Korea, the U.S. and Japan ended their new multidomain trilateral drills in the region. 

In recent years, the three countries have been expanding their trilateral security partnership to better cope with North Korea’s evolving nuclear threats and China’s increasing assertiveness in the region.

The “Freedom Edge” drill was meant to increase the sophistication of previous exercises with simultaneous air and naval drills geared toward improving joint ballistic-missile defence, anti-submarine warfare, surveillance and other skills and capabilities. 

On Sunday, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement strongly denouncing the “Freedom Edge” drill, calling the U.S.-South Korea-Japan partnership an Asian version of NATO. 

It said the drill openly destroyed the security environment on the Korean Peninsula and contained a U.S. intention to lay siege to China and exert pressure on Russia.

The statement said North Korea would “firmly defend the sovereignty, security and interests of the state and peace in the region through offensive and overwhelming countermeasures.”

Monday’s launch was the North’s first weapons firing in five days. On Wednesday, North Korea launched what it called a multiwarhead missile in the first known launch of a developmental, advanced weapon meant to defeat U.S. and South Korean missile defences.

North Korea said the launch was successful, but South Korea dismissed the North’s claim as deception to cover up a failed launch.