Pyongyang launched two cruise missiles from a submarine on Sunday, announced the North Korean agency KCNA, a few hours from joint military exercises between Seoul and Washington. The shooting took place off the coastal town of Sinpo (eastern North Korea) on Sunday morning, according to KCNA. The South Korean army, quoted by the Yonhap agency, confirmed for its part that it had detected a new unspecified missile launch, without giving details.
KCNA says the exercise was successful, with the missiles hitting their designated and unspecified targets off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula. This launch took place a few hours before the launch of the most important joint maneuvers between South Korea and the United States for five years. Pyongyang, which has nuclear weapons, has warned that such drills could be seen as a “declaration of war”.
KCNA said Sunday’s firing expressed North Korea’s “steadfast stance” on a situation in which “US imperialists and South Korean puppet forces are advancing less and less covertly in their military maneuvers against the DPRK”, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. According to KCNA, the test firing also “verified the current operational posture of nuclear deterrents in different spaces”.
In a separate statement, the North Korean Foreign Ministry said the United States was “plotting” to convene a UN Security Council meeting on human rights in North Korea. On Thursday, Pyongyang had already fired a short-range ballistic missile towards the sea off its west coast, according to the South Korean military.
