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| Pyongyang fires more missiles | | |
SEOUL: North Korea fired two more short-range missiles into the sea off its eastern coast on Monday, extending its series of launches into a third day in a possible extended test of a new rocket launcher, South Korea's defense ministry said.
North Korea confirmed its weekend launches but said they were part of defensive drills. Analysts noted that short-range missile firings are relatively routine for North Korea and said Seoul's announcements appeared to be aimed at highlighting the threat from the North and bolstering support for its handling of worsened inter-Korean relations.
The first launch Monday came around midday, followed by a second launch in late afternoon, the South's defense ministry said. The types of projectiles used weren't clear but none of the firings posed a threat to the South or other countries. The ministry said North Korea might be testing a new, more powerful multiple rocket launcher rather than its stock of guided short-range missiles.
North Korea didn't confirm the Monday launches but its state media did refer to launches of three rockets on Saturday and one on Sunday as test firings.
"The North Korean armed forces' exercises to suppress nuclear war threats from the U.S. and the South Korean puppets are an uncontestable legal right of a sovereign country. Despite that, the U.S. and the puppets are running wild on using the rocket launch exercises on the 18th and 19th (of May) against the Republic (of North Korea)," the Korean Central News Agency said in a dispatch attributed to a body that handles inter-Korean affairs. North Korea routinely portrays the U.S. and South Korea as threatening it with nuclear war and has said it intends to build up its own nuclear deterrent to protect itself from the threat. North Korea launches small missiles with ranges of about 100 miles in test firings from its coasts a few times each year. The last reported firing was in March. Because many test launches aren't made public by South Korea, some analysts speculated on Seoul's motives in announcing the latest firings.
Chang Yong-seok, senior researcher at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University, suggested that the announcement was designed to remind the South Korean public that there is an ever-present danger from the North and to shore up support for the government's North Korean policy.
"For any other country, it wouldn't be news," said Rhee Sang-woo, director of the New Asia Research Institute in Seoul.
Communication links between the two Koreas have all but evaporated after protests by the North of military exercises in the South in recent months. Seoul has attempted to start dialogue over resuming operations at the shared industrial park that North Korea pulled out of in April but has been repeatedly rebuffed by Pyongyang, which says the calls for talks aren't sincere.
On Sunday, the South Korean government condemned Pyongyang's earlier rocket launches and urged the North again to come to the negotiating table over the jointly run Kaesong Industrial Complex.
Seoul's defense ministry said its decision on whether to make North Korea's short-range missile launches public depends on "whether the level of danger is high enough."
"Whether it's a test-firing or armed demonstration, North Korea should not engage in tension-creating acts," Kim Jang-soo, head of the national security office, was quoted as saying by presidential spokeswoman Kim Haing.
The North's missile tests are a reminder of Pyongyang's large conventional military arsenal. North Korea is believed to have hundreds of short-range missiles, many of which could target Seoul and other densely populated areas in South Korea.
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