The official Korean Central News Agency said Saturday’s drill was meant to get familiar with the procedure for the operation of the integrated firepower control system.
South Korea’s military earlier said it detected short-range ballistic missile launches from DPRK’s eastern coastal Wonsan area on Saturday morning.
After observing the drill, Marshal Pak Jong-chon said the drill would “improve the level of specialisation to bring down the enemy’s armed forces organisationally and structurally once an order is issued.”
He added that the weapons systems mobilised demonstrated “the huge destructive power of concentrated fire,” according to KCNA.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said several missiles fired on Saturday each flew about 250 kilometres toward the DPRK’s eastern waters.
The flight distances signal the weapons are designed to strike targets in South Korea.
The firing drill marked Pyongyang’s first public ballistic missile launches in about three weeks.
Last month, US President Donald Trump scaled back a major bilateral military drill with South Korea, citing what he called a good relationship with DPRK leader Kim Jong-un.
That’s an apparent effort to revive diplomacy between them, but Pyongyang rebuffed Trump’s overture, saying that shortening the drill didn’t change its “provocative, aggressive nature”.
Kim first met Trump in 2018 in Singapore and the US leader briefly stepped foot on DPRK soil in 2019.
Kim said earlier this year that he could return to talks if the US drops its “hostile policy” against his country and respects what he calls the DPRK’s status as a nuclear state. (AP)
