N. Korea fires projectiles twice into sea
New launches come with warning about exercises
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Tuesday continued to ramp up its weapons demonstrations by firing unidentified projectiles twice into the sea while lashing out at the United States and South Korea for continuing their joint military exercises that the North says could derail fragile nuclear diplomacy.
South Korea’s military alerted reporters of the launches minutes before an unidentified spokesperson of the North’s Foreign Ministry released a statement denouncing Washington and Seoul over the start of their joint exercises on Monday.
The statement said the drills, which North Korea sees as an invasion rehearsal, leave the country “compelled to develop, test and deploy the powerful physical means essential for national defense.”
The North’s spokesperson said Pyongyang remains committed to dialogue, but it could seek a “new road” if the allies don’t change their positions.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectiles were launched early Tuesday from an area near the North’s western coast and flew cross-country before landing in waters off the country’s eastern coast.
It didn’t immediately say how many projectiles were fired or how far they flew.
South Korea’s government had no immediate statement on the North’s launches, which were its fourth round of weapons tests in less than two weeks.
The office of South Korean President Moon Jae-in said his chief national security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, will hold an emergency meeting with the country’s defense minister and spy chief on Tuesday to discuss the launches.
North Korea had said it will wait to see if the August exercises actually take place to decide on the fate of its diplomacy with the United States.
The North’s launches came a day after Moon made a nationalistic call for economic cooperation between the Koreas while denouncing Japan’s imposition of trade curbs on the South amid an escalating diplomatic row.
Moon’s insistence that a “peace economy” by the Koreas would be able to erase Japan’s comparative economic superiority by “one burst” drew instant criticism from conservatives, who accused the president of ignoring the North’s tests of shortrange weapons that experts say pose a serious threat to the South’s security.