North Korea has again fired two unidentified missiles into the sea off its eastern coast on Friday morning, According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
It is the latest and 6th attempt in a series of launches to threat the US-South Korea joint military drills, over a course of 6 weeks.
The South Korean military claimed the projectiles were fired from near the city of Tongchon of Kangwon province into the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan.
“The military is monitoring the situation in case of additional launches while maintaining a readiness posture,” the JCS said.
It was the sixth round of launches since last month, with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared them a “solemn warning” over US-South Korean joint military drills that began earlier this month.
North Korea’s recent tests have dampened the optimism that followed the third and latest meeting between US President Donald Trump and Kim on June 30 at the inter-Korean border.
North Korea has set an end-of-year deadline for Washington to change its approach to the talks, which have been hanged since a Trump-Kim summit in February that tore down over a policy of pairing sanctions relief with steps to stop North Korea’s nuclear program.
Kim has agreed to restart negotiations after US-South Korea military drills, according to President Trump. But both sides refrained from softening their stance. And it’s not obvious at the moment, what an upcoming Trump-Kim convention could accomplish, if not supported by more working-level negotiations.
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So far, North Korea has stuck by its unilateral suspension of nuclear and long-range missile tests.
The series of Ballistic missile tests, conducted by North Korea would be a breach of UN Security Council resolutions that banned North Korea to develop such missile technology. North Korea ignores the restriction as a liberation of its self-defense right.