NKorea says weapons drill was defensive\, criticizes Seoul

NKorea says weapons drill was defensive, criticizes Seoul

AP  |  Seoul 

on Thursday described its firing of rocket artillery and an apparent short-range over the weekend as a regular and defensive military exercise and ridiculed for criticizing the launches.

A separate statement by a North Korean described the launches as a "routine and self-defensive military drill."

South Korea's presidential and have raised concern that Saturday's launches went against the spirit of an inter-Korean military agreement reached last year to cease all hostile activities and urged to refrain from acts that could escalate tensions.

North Korean on Sunday showed leader observing live-fire drills of long-range multiple rocket launchers and what appeared to be a new short-range fired from a launch vehicle.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff a day earlier said it detected firing multiple projectiles toward the sea from near the eastern town of

The launches, which likely represented North Korea's first launch in more than 500 days, were clearly a sign of Pyongyang's frustration at stalled diplomatic talks with meant to provide coveted sanctions relief in return for nuclear disarmament.

They also highlighted the fragility of the detente between the Koreas, which in a military agreement reached last September vowed to completely cease "all hostile acts" against each other in land, air and sea.

The North Korean statements implied that Saturday's launches counter joint military drills conducted by the and in March and April. The North also criticized the test of a U.S. Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile from a base in last week.

While the and have stopped their annual large-scale military exercises and replaced them with smaller exercises since last year to create room for diplomacy, the North has still criticized the South for continuing joint drills with the United States.

The statement by the North Korean said the South's military has "no qualification" to vilify the North when they "staged a provocative combined air drill against the sovereign state together with the U.S." and kept silence about the Minuteman test that it said was meant to threaten the North.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Thu, May 09 2019. 09:10 IST