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Agence France-Presse

North Korea on Wednesday fired what appeared to be two short-range missiles into the sea in the latest in a series of launches interspersed with spurned peace overtures to South Korea.
A spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said the two missiles were fired from the western province of Hwanghae into the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea.
“We suspect they were short-range ballistic missiles,” spokesman Um Hoy-sik said, adding that the range was around 500km.
UN resolutions bar the North from conducting any ballistic missile tests, and Japan was swift to condemn the launches.
“We have lodged a strong protest against North Korea,” the Japanese government’s top spokesman said.
The protest was made through diplomatic channels in Beijing.
“These latest missile launches violate past UN Security Council resolutions that ban any launch by North Korea using ballistic missile technology,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga added.
It was the fourth missile test in less than two weeks.
The previous launches had preceded a state trip to South Korea by President Xi Jinping and had been read by some analysts as a show of pique at his decision to visit Seoul before Pyongyang.
China is North Korea’s sole major ally, but while Xi has met four times with South Korean President Park Geun-hye – including two summits – he has yet to sit down with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
As Xi arrived in Seoul on July 3, Pyongyang announced its intention to continue the tests, despite protests from Seoul and Tokyo.
One of the previous launches was hailed by the North’s state media as that of a new “cutting-edge” guided missile marking a “breakthrough” in the North’s military capabilities.
North Korea is not known to have a tactical guided missile capability, but analysis of a recent propaganda film suggested it may have acquired a variant of a Russian cruise missile, the KH-35.
Statements from Pyongyang have suggested several reasons for the tests, including anger over recent South Korean naval drills near the maritime border.
In between the launches, the North has extended a number of apparent olive branches to the South, including a proposal for both sides to halt all provocative military activity.
Seoul dismissed the offers as “nonsensical” in the light of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme.
UN resolutions bar the North from conducting any ballistic missile tests, but short- to medium-range launches have tended to go unpunished.
Wednesday’s test came as North Korea announced the death from a heart attack of Jon Pyong-ho, a retired general seen as a chief architect of its missile and nuclear weapons programmes.
According to the NK Leadership Watch website, Jon supervised the development of medium-range ballistic missiles in the 1990s, and offered the designs to Pakistan in exchange for detailed information on gas centrifuge technology and uranium enrichment.
US intelligence said Jon was a key figure in the North’s international weapons trade that involved shipping components for missiles, nuclear reactors and conventional arms to countries including Iran, Syria and Myanmar.
Over the years, he was individually named in sanctions imposed on North Korea by the United Nations, United States and European Union.


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North Korea fires more missiles into sea after Seoul rejects call to end hostilities

This undated picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Monday shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un posing with soldiers as he inspects the defence detachment on Ung Islet, defending an outpost in the East Sea. Photo: AFP 

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visits the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun at midnight on Tuesday on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the demise of President Kim Il-sung. Photo: Reuters

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A cheerleader from North Korea at the Asian Games in Busan, South Korea in 2002. Photo: Antony Dickson/SCMP

Kim Jong-un continued a tour of front-line islands with a visit to an islet in the Sea of Japan, or East Sea where, according to KCNA, he watched a firing drill. Photo: EPA

Kim's wife, Ri Sol-ju, is a former cheerleader. Photo: Reuters

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Asia

Fourth projectile test in two weeks after South Korea dismissed peace offers as “nonsensical” in the light of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme


.css-sioo19{color:#c79a00;}Update | North Korea fires more missiles into sea after Seoul rejects call to end hostilities

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Fourth projectile test in two weeks after South Korea dismissed peace offers as “nonsensical” in the light of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme

Update | North Korea fires more missiles into sea after Seoul rejects call to end hostilities

Fourth projectile test in two weeks after South Korea dismissed peace offers as “nonsensical” in the light of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme