SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles on Wednesday toward its east coast, South Korea and Japan said, days after Pyongyang unveiled a uranium enrichment facility.
The missiles lifted off from Kaechon, north of the capital Pyongyang, at around 6:50 a.m. (2150 GMT Tuesday) in a northeast direction and flew about 400 km (249 miles), South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, without specifying how many were fired and where they landed.
Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said at least one of the missiles fell near the North’s eastern inland coast and that the launches “cannot be tolerated.”
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s office held a meeting to assess the security situation and told Pyongyang to halt all provocations, including its ongoing release of balloons carrying trash into the South.
On Thursday, the North fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles into waters east of the Korean peninsula. This was the first major weapons test by the nuclear-armed country since early July.
North Korean state media later reported that this had been a test of a “new-type 600mm multiple rocket launcher.”
North Korea has staged dozens of launches this year. Pyongyang declared South Korea its “principal enemy” this year and recently moved nuclear-capable weapons to border areas.
On Friday, North Korea released images of its uranium enrichment facility for the first time, showing leader Kim Jong-un touring a nuclear facility.
The state media reported on Friday that the North Korean leader called for increasing the number of centrifuges for uranium enrichment to increase the nation’s nuclear arsenal for self-defense.
The country, which conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, has never publicly disclosed details of its uranium enrichment facility.
Such facilities produce highly enriched uranium by spinning the original material in centrifuges at high speeds.
Kim toured the Nuclear Weapons Institute and the “production base of weapon-grade nuclear materials,” according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
The KCNA did not provide the facility’s location or visit date.
Pyongyang, which has been under harsh sanctions by the United States and the United Nations Security Council for years over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, says such military maneuvers amount to a rehearsal for invasion.