UNDISCLOSED LOCATION: Photo shows the test-firing of a new weapon, presumed to be a short-range ballistic missile, at an undisclosed location.  - AFP

SEOUL: North
Korea launched at least two short-range ballistic missiles on Friday, South
Korea's military said, shortly after Pyongyang described South Korea's
president as "impudent" and vowed that inter-Korean talks are over.
The North has protested against joint US-South Korea military drills, largely
computer-simulated, which kicked off last week, calling them a rehearsal for
war. It has also fired several short-range missiles in recent weeks.

North Korea fired
two more short-range projectiles into the sea off its east coast on Friday
morning, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement. Japan's
defense ministry said it did not see any imminent security threat from the latest
projectile launch. A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
initial information indicated at least one projectile was fired by North Korea
and appeared to be similar to the short-range missiles fired in previous weeks.

Another official
said the United States was consulting with South Korea and Japan. An official
at Seoul's defense ministry said the latest test involved ballistic technology
and detailed analysis was under way with the United States with the possibility
that the North fired the same type of missiles it used on Aug. 10. The missiles
were launched shortly after 8 am Friday and flew around 230 kms to an altitude
of 30 kms, South Korea's JCS said.

The launches have
complicated attempts to restart talks between US and North Korean negotiators
over the future of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
Those denuclearization talks have been stalled despite a commitment to revive
them made at a June 30 meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean
leader Kim Jong Un. Earlier on Friday, Pyongyang rejected a vow by South Korean
President Moon Jae-in a day earlier to pursue talks with the North and to unify
the two Koreas by 2045.

The loss of
dialogue momentum between the North and South and the stalemate in implementing
pledges made at an historic summit between their two leaders last year was
entirely the responsibility of the South, a North Korean spokesman said. The
unidentified spokesman repeated criticism that the joint US-South Korea drills
were a sign of Seoul's hostility towards the North.

"We have
nothing to talk any more with the South Korean authorities nor have any idea to
sit with them again," the North's spokesman for the Committee for the
Peaceful Reunification of the Country said in a statement carried by the
official KCNA news agency. The committee manages relationships with the South.
The rival Koreas are technically still at war after the 1950-53 Korean War
ended with a truce rather than a peace treaty.

South Korea's unification
ministry called North Korea's comments about Moon "not in line" with
inter-Korean agreements and unhelpful for developing relations between them.
After an emergency meeting of South Korea's National Security Council held to
discuss the launches, officials reiterated that the joint drills are simply an
opportunity to evaluate whether South Korea could eventually assume wartime
control of the allied forces on the peninsula.

'Impudent guy'

Moon and Kim have
met three times since April last year, pledging peace and cooperation, but
little progress has been made to improve dialogue and strengthen exchanges and
cooperation. "North Korea makes it exceedingly difficult to build trust
when it interprets restraint as weakness and looks to exploit divisions within
South Korea," said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in
Seoul.

Seoul and
Washington should continue to seek working-level talks with North Korea but the
allies should also prepare new sanctions and renewed military cooperation if
Pyongyang continues to violate United Nations resolutions and threaten its
neighbors, Easley said. The South's Moon said in a Liberation Day address on
Thursday it was only through his policy of Korean national peace that dialogue
with the North was still possible.

"In spite of
a series of worrying actions taken by North Korea recently, the momentum for
dialogue remains unshaken," Moon said in a speech marking Korea's
independence from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule. The North's spokesman
described Moon as an "impudent guy" who is "overcome with
fright". He said Moon had no standing to talk about engagement with the
North because of the ongoing military manoeuvres. "His open talk about
'dialogue' between the North and the South under such a situation raises a
question as to whether he has proper thinking faculty," the spokesman
said.

It was
"senseless" to think that inter-Korean dialogue would resume once the
military drills with the United States were over, he said. However, the
spokesman left open the possibility of talks with the United States. Trump and
Kim have met twice since their first summit in Singapore last year and said
their countries would continue talks. However, little progress has been made on
the North's stated commitment to denuclearize. - Reuters