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South Korea’s military said on Monday night (Tuesday morning local time) that North Korea fired unidentified projectiles twice into the sea, The Associated Press reports.
The launches came a day after the US and South Korean militaries started scaled-down joint military exercises despite warnings from the North that the drills could derail fragile nuclear diplomacy.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectiles were launched from an area near the North’s western coast and flew cross-country before landing in waters off the country’s eastern coast. It did not immediately say how far the projectiles flew.
The US Department of Defense will “continue to monitor the situation and are consulting closely with our South Korean and Japanese allies,” a department spokesman said, according to Reuters.
The test is the latest in a series of tests the North has carried out over the past week. The last one came on Thursday and was the third time in eight days North Korea had carried out a missile test.
North Korean media reported that an earlier test was personally supervised by leader Kim Jong Un, and that a “new-type large-caliber multiple launch guided rocket system” had been tested.
The tests come as talks between the US and North Korea on denuclearization continue to stall, having broken down after the failed summit between Kim and President Donald Trump in February in Vietnam.
Nevertheless, Trump said on Friday that North Korea’s missile tests may have violated United Nations resolutions but did not break his agreement with Kim.