North Korea fired two more ballistic missiles on Monday, this time with a short range, the South Korean general headquarters said.

The new weapon test adds to a series of similar tests conducted in recent weeks.

The missiles were fired “in the direction of the East Sea,” the South Korean military said, a maritime area that Tokyo calls the Sea of ​​Japan.

A few days earlier, South Korea and the United States held their largest joint military exercise in five years.

Pyongyang considers these universities a rehearsal for an invasion of its territory. On Friday, he named the latest exercise, dubbed “Freedom Shield”, in which the South Korean and US military are trained to impose an “occupation” on North Korea.

The North Korean military has responded by conducting its own exercises, including testing what it calls a “nuclear attack submarine drone” and launching a second intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) sometime in 2023.

After a year of record-breaking weapons tests and an escalation of North Korean nuclear threats in 2022, Seoul and Washington stepped up security cooperation.

North Korea said last year that its status as a nuclear power was “irreversible” and its leader Kim Jong-un recently announced an “exponential” increase in weapons production, including tactical nuclear weapons.

Source: RES-IPE