North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un says the country’s latest missile launches were a warning to Washington and Seoul over their joint war games, state news agency KCNA reported on Wednesday, as tensions rise on the Korean peninsula.
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.
Those drills are taking place despite Pyongyang’s warnings that the exercises would jeopardise nuclear negotiations between the United States and North Korea.
KCNA said Kim had watched the launches early Tuesday, which verified the “war capacity” of the “new-type tactical guided missiles”.
Pyongyang on Tuesday fired two projectiles that “are assumed to be short-range ballistic missiles” into the sea, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said earlier.
The latest weapons tests were the fourth pair of projectiles fired in less than two weeks, and the North has threatened more.
