Seoul (AFP) -{ North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea and vowed “merciless” retaliation Monday as the US and South Korea kicked off joint military drills denounced by Pyongyang as recklessly confrontational.}
The annual exercises always trigger a surge in military tensions and warlike rhetoric on the divided peninsula, and analysts saw the North’s missile tests as a prelude to a concerted campaign of sabre-rattling.
“If there is a particularly sharp escalation, we could see the North orchestrating some kind of clash on the maritime border,” said Jeung Young-Tae, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.
The missile launches came with a stern warning from the nuclear-armed (North) Korean People’s Army (KPA) that this year’s military drills would bring the peninsula “towards the brink of war”.
The South’s defence ministry said the Scud missiles were fired from the western port city of Nampo and fell into the sea off the east coast — a distance of nearly 500 kilometres (310 miles).
UN resolutions ban any ballistic missile test by North Korea, and Seoul defence ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok said Pyongyang appeared intent on triggering a “security crisis”.
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