Pyongyang fired two cruise missiles from a submarine on Sunday, North Korea’s KCNA agency said on Monday, hours before joint military exercises between Seoul and Washington.
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The shooting took place outside the coastal city of Sinpo (in eastern North Korea), according to KCNA on Sunday morning.
The South Korean army, quoted by Yonhap news agency, said it had detected the launch of a single unspecified missile, without giving details.
According to KCNA, the exercise was successful as the missiles hit their designated and unspecified targets off the east coast of the Korean peninsula.
This launch came hours before the start of the most important joint maneuvers between South Korea and the United States in five years.
Pyongyang, which has nuclear weapons, had warned such drills could be considered a “declaration of war.”
KCNA pointed out that Sunday’s shooting reflected North Korea’s “steady stance” on a situation where “US imperialists and South Korean puppet forces are advancing less and less covertly in their military maneuvers against the DPRK,” the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
According to KCNA, the test shot also made it possible to “verify the current deployment situation of nuclear deterrents in different rooms.”
In a separate statement, North Korea’s foreign ministry said the United States “conspired” to call a UN Security Council meeting on human rights in North Korea.
According to the South Korean military, Pyongyang had already fired a short-range ballistic missile towards the sea off its west coast on Thursday, according to the South Korean military.
Washington and Seoul have increased their defense cooperation in the face of a growing military and nuclear threat from North Korea, which has led to increased weapons testing in recent months.
Freedom Shield training between US and South Korean forces, which begins Monday for at least 10 days, will focus on “the changing security environment” due to North Korea’s redoubled aggressiveness, the allies said.
Pyongyang sees these drills as a dress rehearsal for invading its territory or overthrowing its regime, while justifying its own nuclear and ballistic weapons programs on the grounds of self-defense.
On Friday, state news agency KCNA reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered his army to step up military maneuvers for a “real war.”
In 2022, the North described its nuclear status as “irreversible” and conducted a series of ballistic tests in violation of UN resolutions.
“Pyongyang has military capabilities under development that it wants to test anyway, and likes to use Washington-Seoul cooperation as an excuse,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.