North Korea fires short-range missiles

The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said North Korea launched "an unidentified short-range missile" at 9:06 a.m. this morning (7:06 a.m. Hanoi time) from a test site in the eastern city of Wonsan toward the Sea of ​​Japan.

JCS is still coordinating with the US military to analyze details of the missile test.

Wonsan is home to one of North Korea's key missile test sites, which has played a key role in the country's development of long-range weapons. "The site has been used for a series of ballistic missile tests and major artillery exercises in recent years," 38 North, a website that monitors North Korea and is part of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, said in a 2016 report.

The test launch took place in the context of the situation on the Korean peninsula recently showing signs of complexity when South Korean intelligence and US experts discovered that Pyongyang showed signs of restoring the Sohae missile launch site and had minimal activity at the Yongbon nuclear facility.

North Korea announced on April 17 that it had successfully tested a "new tactical weapon," marking its first public weapons launch since the historic meeting between leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump in Singapore last year.

Trump previously expressed his commitment to continuing negotiations with Pyongyang by emphasizing his close relationship with the North Korean leader and ordering the withdrawal of additional sanctions on Pyongyang because he "likes Kim Jong-un".

South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said yesterday that North Korea needs to show "clear, firm and substantial" denuclearization actions if it wants international sanctions against the country to be eased, as US-North Korea negotiations remain deadlocked.