N. Korea conducts sixth launch of projectiles towards East Sea in three weeks

北, 강원도 통천일대에서 동해상으로 단거리 탄도미사일 추정 발사체 2회 발사North Korea fired yet more projectiles into the East Sea this morning.It's the regime's second launch in six days and... the sixth in three weeks.Kim Ji-yeon reports.South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea fired what it presumes to be two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea at around 8:01 and 8:16AM Friday morning.They were fired from North Korea's eastern coastal county of Tongchon in the North's Kangwon-do Province, recording a maximum altitude of some 30 kilometers, with a flight distance of some 230 kilometers... and maximum speed of more than Mach 6-point-1... which is some 7-thousand-466 kilometers an hour.The South Korean military is monitoring the situation in case of additional launches, while maintaining a readiness posture... and it's working closely with the U.S. to verify more about the recent launch.The South Korean government said the latest launch is a response to the joint summertime training by the South Korean and U.S. militaries... but a military source said earlier that the recent launches may have been planned long ago... and the North is using the drills as an excuse to continue their launches.Right before Friday's test-fire.... North Korea slammed South Korea, saying it has "no thought" of ever sitting down with Seoul again.It criticized Seoul's defense ministry's release of its mid-term force enhancement plan... a blueprint for how the defense budget will be allocated during the next five years... and mocked comments made in President Moon Jae-in's speech... calling them reckless and unrelated to Liberation Day.North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency posted a statement by the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, criticizing President Moon for saying the "dialogue atmosphere was not marred despite some recent worrisome acts of North Korea"... when Seoul is currently holding joint military training with Washington.It added President Moon is a (quote)"impudent" man, and said Seoul better not think of resuming talks alongside North Korea and the U.S. once the joint training is over... a move to alienate Seoul from the denuclearization talks.North Korea's criticism over the South Korea-U.S. joint "Combined Command Post Training" continues despite it being scaled-down from previous years.The training runs through next Tuesday, August 20th,... and involves computer-based war simulations to verify South Korea's state of readiness for the envisioned transfer of wartime operational control from Washington to Seoul.This year, real military equipment and forces are not being mobilized.Kim Ji-yeon, Arirang News.