North Korea launches missiles hours after condemning US-South Korea drills

(Reuters): North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles on Monday, hours after condemning the South Korean and US militaries for launching drills that Pyongyang called a “dangerous provocative act” that risked accidentally sparking a confrontation.

South Korea’s military said the missiles were fired from North Korea’s western region toward the Yellow Sea. The launch was the first reported ballistic missile test since US President Donald Trump took office in January.

The missiles were believed to be close-range ballistic missiles, a South Korean defence ministry official said, referring to a type of weapon with a range of under 300 kilometres.

The US military, in a statement, condemned the missile launches and called on North Korea “to refrain from further unlawful and destabilising acts”. The Indo-Pacific Command added that it would monitor the situation, which it said was not an immediate threat to the US or its allies.

The allies’ annual Freedom Shield drills are scheduled to run until March 20, although live-fire exercises remain suspended after South Korean jets mistakenly dropped bombs on a civilian town near the border last week, injuring 29.

North Korea has typically demanded that US-South Korea joint exercises be halted, branding them a prelude to an invasion. The South Korean military has said the joint drills aim to strengthen the readiness of the alliance to face threats such as North Korea.

“This is a dangerous provocative act of leading the acute situation on the Korean peninsula, which may spark off a physical conflict between the two sides by means of an accidental single shot, to the extreme point,” North Korea’s foreign ministry said, according to state media outlet KCNA. The drills would harm US security, the ministry added.

Lee Young-su, chief of South Korea’s Air Force, bowed in apology on Monday over the “unprecedented” accident last week in which two jets mistakenly bombed a South Korean village. “It was an accident that should never have happened, and it should never happen again,” Lee told reporters.

A pilot in one jet was pressed for time and did not double-check the target coordinates, while another pilot in the other jet followed and dropped bombs without noticing the incorrect coordinates, a South Korean military official said, citing the interim results of the military’s investigation.

The area hit by the accidental bombing in Pocheon, which is about 40 kilometres northeast of Seoul, was outside a training area near the border with North Korea. Residents in the area have long complained about the disturbance and risks coming from the exercises.