N. Korean missiles would target ships

Launch of cruise weapons message to U.S., Japanese.

Just days after a flotilla of U.S. and Japanese warships left the sea between Japan and the Korean Peninsula, where they had been deployed in a show of force toward Pyongyang, North Korea tested missiles designed to hit such ships.

The launches Thursday morning of what appeared to be surface-to-ship cruise missiles were meant to demonstrate that the North could repel forces staging a strike on the Korean Peninsula, analysts said.

South Korea’s newly elected president, Moon Jae-in, convened his first national security meeting in Seoul, South Korea, on Thursday to discuss the latest missile tests, which were the fifth the North had conducted since he was elected last month, and the 10th this year.

“North Korea will only face further isolation from the international community and economic difficulties with its missile launches,” Moon said, according to a statement released by the presidential Blue House.

The launches came less than a week after the United Nations Security Council expanded its sanctions against Pyongyang over previous missile tests.

They also came less than 24 hours after Moon’s administration said it had suspended the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile defense system — called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD — that is meant to detect North Korean missiles and prevent them from hitting their targets.

Critics had suggested that the suspension — which appeared to be a concession to China, whose leaders strongly objected to the THAAD system, and a break with the United States on policy toward North Korea — signaled that Moon was taking a much softer stance toward the North than his predecessors had.

Moon sought to dispel any such perception Thursday. In his strongest language on the North since his inauguration, Moon told the National Security Council that his government “will not step back even one step or make compromises on national security or on the safety of our people.”

The North has been steadily pursuing missile tests in defiance of U.N. sanctions and international condemnation. The tests Thursday appeared to be of four-canister missiles on new launchers that were displayed during a military parade in April.

The missiles flew about 125 miles before landing in the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

CHUNG SUNG-JUN / GETTY IMAGES South Korean girls walk Thursday past replicas of a North Korean Scud-B missile (right, at back) and a South Korean Nike missile (left), on display at the Korean War Memorial in Seoul. North Korea has held 10 missile launches this year.