By Kyu-seok Shim
SEOUL, April 8 (Reuters) – North Korea fired an unidentified projectile toward the sea off its east coast on Wednesday, South Korea’s military said, following a separate launch detected a day earlier as Pyongyang doused Seoul’s hopes of an easing in tensions.
South Korea’s military separately said it had detected the launch of a suspected ballistic missile from the Pyongyang area in North Korea on Tuesday.
South Korean and U.S. authorities were analysing the launch, it said.
According to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, citing military officials, the projectile launched on Tuesday flew eastward before showing signs of an abnormality in the early stage of flight and disappearing.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff is leaning towards the possibility that the object was a ballistic missile, in what could amount to a failure after launch, Yonhap reported.
South Korea typically announces North Korean ballistic missile launches promptly, as such tests violate U.N. Security Council resolutions, while it tends to be more cautious when projectiles are believed to be conventional weapons or cruise missiles.
North Korea rejects the U.N. ban and says it infringes its sovereign right to self-defence.
HOSTILE ENEMY
The disclosure of the latest launches came after a statement by a top North Korean official that made clear that Pyongyang saw no shift in its hostile stance toward Seoul despite hopes of a thaw in relations.
Jang Kum Chol, a senior official at North Korea’s foreign ministry, said the South was engaging in wishful thinking if it thought Pyongyang was ready to see Seoul as anything other than an enemy.
“The identity of the ROK, the enemy state most hostile to the DPRK, can never change with any words or conduct,” Jang was quoted as saying by state media KCNA late on Tuesday, using the formal acronyms for the names of South and North Korea.
The comments came after North Korea said on Monday it was “very fortunate and wise” for South Korean President Lee Jae Myung to convey regret to Pyongyang for drone incursions earlier this year.
Some in Seoul saw the statement as a rare act of conciliation from the nuclear-armed North after decades of hostility. The two nations remain technically at war after their 1950-1953 conflict ended in a truce.
But Jang said the statement issued by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister Kim Yo Jong amounted to a warning to Seoul, and dismissed interpretations that it reflected friendly intentions.
(Reporting by Kyu-seok Shim and Jack Kim; Editing by Rod Nickel and Stephen Coates)
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