Pyongyang had warned that the war games would jeopardise nuclear negotiations between the United States and North Korea.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Pyongyang’s latest missile launches were meant as a warning to Washington and Seoul over their joint war games, state news agency KCNA reported on August 7. It said Kim had watched the demonstration early on August 6, which verified the “war capacity” of the “new-type tactical guided missiles”.
With the demonstration carried out satisfactorily, “Kim Jong Un noted that the said military action would be an occasion to send an adequate warning to the joint military drill now underway by the US and South Korean authorities,” KCNA said.
Pyongyang on Tuesday fired two projectiles which “are assumed to be short-range ballistic missiles” into the sea, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said earlier.
The latest launch by the nuclear-armed North came after the South Korean and US militaries began mainly computer-simulated joint exercises on Monday to test Seoul’s ability to take operational control in wartime.
Pyongyang had warned that the war games would jeopardise nuclear negotiations between the United States and North Korea.