North Korea test fires two ballistic missiles into Sea of Japan, South Korea says

Seoul — North Korea test fired two short-range missiles Thursday, South Korea’s military said, the latest in a string of banned weapons tests carried out by Pyongyang so far this year.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the country’s military detected “two short-range ballistic missiles launched by North Korea into the East Sea from the Sunan area” at about 7:30 p.m. local time (6:30 a.m. Eastern) Thursday. The East Sea is also known as the Sea of Japan.

The joint chiefs said South Korea was “maintaining a readiness posture while closely cooperating with the U.S. while strengthening surveillance and vigilance in preparation for additional provocations.” 

Japan’s military said the missiles may have landed within the country’s exclusive maritime zone, and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida lodged a “severe” protest with North Korea over the launch, according to Japanese news agency Kyoto, blasting it as an “outrageous act that escalates provocations.”  

The missile tests came after the North’s military vowed to respond to South Korea and the U.S. holding days of major live-fire military exercises, which wrapped up Thursday, near the heavily fortified border that separates North and South Korea.

An article published by the North’s state-run KCNA news agency quoted a spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense as saying the country “strongly denounces the provocative and irresponsible moves of the puppet military authorities escalating the military tension in the region despite repeated warnings, and warns them solemnly.”

“Our response to this is inevitable,” the official was quoted as saying, without providing any details of the planned response.

North Korea has frequently reacted to U.S-South Korea war games with missile tests, and despite reports that the isolated country is already suffering through a domestic famine crisis, its dictator Kim Jong Un has continued channelling huge financial resources into weapons development. 

In April, Kim’s military leaders claimed to have flight-tested a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time ever, which would represent a  significant breakthrough in North Korea’s efforts to acquire a more powerful, harder-to-detect and shoot down missile capable of hitting the continental U.S.

In May, North Korea confirmed a failed attempt to launch a spy satellite into space, in another move that would be seen as a major provocation by its neighbors and the United States. The botched attempt triggered emergency alerts in Seoul and on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa. 

North Korea said then that efforts were already underway to try the launch again.

CBS News’ Tucker Reals and Jen Kwon contributed to this report.