SEOUL: North Korea fired what appeared to be two short-range missiles on Thursday, the South’s military said, less than a week after its leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the test-firing of multiple rockets and a missile.
The launches came as U.S. special envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun was in the South Korean capital for talks with Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and his counterpart, nuclear envoy Lee Do-hoon.
South Korea’s presidential Blue House called the missile launches “very worrisome” and unhelpful for efforts to reduce tensions on the peninsula and improve inter-Korean relations amid protracted talks on denuclearization.
The two missiles were fired from the northwest area of Kusong, in an easterly direction, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
They covered distances of 420 km (260 miles) and 270 km (168 miles) and reached an altitude of about 50 km (31 miles) before falling into the sea, they said.
Analysts said it was too soon to say exactly what kind of missiles they were.
“You don’t know what missile it is just from how far it flew,” said Yang Uk, a senior research fellow at the Korea Defence and Security Forum.