DPRK fires 5 short-range missiles into east waters

South Korean men watch a TV news program on the launch of North Korea's new anti-ship cruise missile, at Seoul train station in Seoul, South Korea, Feb 8, 2015.[Photo/IC]

SEOUL - The Democratic People's Republic of Korea fired five short-range projectiles, presumed to be tactical missiles, into east waters Sunday afternoon, reported Yonhap News Agency citing the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The five projectiles were fired off between 4:20 p.m. and 5:10 p.m. local time from Wonsan area in eastern DPRK into a northeasterly direction. Those are estimated to have flown about 200 km.

The projectiles are believed to be a new type of DPRK tactical missiles that were also launched in August 2014.

It marked the DPRK's second missile launch in 2015, just two days after Pyongyang fired off ship-to-ship missiles in waters off Wonsan area.

The military of the Republic of Korea (ROK) is closely monitoring the DPRK's possible firings of additional missiles.

The firings came ahead of joint annual war games between Seoul and Washington scheduled for early March to April. Pyongyang proposed to suspend nuclear tests in return for the halt of joint annual military drills between the ROK and the United States in 2015, but the two countries flatly rejected the proposal.

The DPRK fired a number of short-range missiles from Feb. 21 to mid-August last year amid frosty inter-Korean relations in protest against the joint war games.

The ROK offered to hold high-level talks with the DPRK in January, but Pyongyang has kept mum about it and called for the halt of the joint drills, the stop of anti-DPRK leaflet dispersion and the lifting of DPRK sanctions as preconditions for the dialogue resumption.