Enlarge image
TV footage of a North Korean missile test in Seoul, South Korea
Photo:
Lee Jin-man / AP
North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles at sea off the east coast on Saturday.
According to the South Korean military, this was the fourth launch in a week.
The two missiles were launched north of the North Korean capital Pyongyang, the South Korean general staff said in a statement.
The Japanese Coast Guard also reported at least two suspected ballistic missile tests.
The missiles flew 400 and 350 kilometers and reached an altitude of 50 kilometers, said Japanese Defense Minister Toshiro Ino.
The missile launch came after naval forces of South Korea, the United States and Japan held trilateral anti-submarine drills on Friday.
The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan also took part in the four-day naval exercises.
It was the first deployment of a US aircraft carrier to South Korea in almost four years.
»Brutal Dictatorship«
Most recently, North Korea carried out a test with two ballistic missiles on Thursday, just a few hours after US Vice President Kamala Harris left South Korea.
During her visit to the inter-Korean border, Harris strongly criticized North Korea as a "brutal dictatorship with rampant human rights abuses and an illegal arms program that threatens peace and stability".
North Korea has been subject to UN sanctions since 2006, which the Security Council has steadily and unanimously tightened over the years.
North Korea is to be prevented from financing its nuclear weapons and missile programs.
However, North Korea's ruler Kim Jong Un is not going to be deterred from his course, as he sees his country threatened by the United States.
North Korea recently passed a new nuclear weapons law that provides for the right to carry out a nuclear first strike in self-defense.
The status as a nuclear power was also "irreversibly" anchored in it.
The US military's Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement Saturday that the missile tests posed "no immediate threat" to the United States and its allies, but underscored the "destabilizing effect of North Korea's illicit" missile programs.
sak/dpa