North Korea launches 2 ballistic missiles after South Korea, U.S. military drills

North Korea fired two short-range missiles off its east coast on Thursday, the South Korean military said, less than an hour after Pyongyang warned of an "inevitable" response to military drills staged earlier in the day by South Korean and U.S. troops.

Japan's Defence Ministry said the two ballistic missiles landed within the country's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), possibly having flown in an irregular trajectory. One landed in the Sea of Japan about 110 kilometres northwest of Hegura island, part of Ishikawa prefecture, and the other about 250 kilometresaway, Japanese authorities said.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned the launches.

"The latest missile launch is a violation of Security Council resolutions and an escalation of provocations against the international community as a whole. We lodged a strong protest against North Korea," he told reporters.

The government was due to hold a National Security Council meeting, Kyodo News reported.

The United States, Japan and South Korea on Thursday condemned the act in a joint statement.

"These launches are clear violations of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions, and demonstrate the threat the DPRK's unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs pose to the region, international peace and security, and the global non-proliferation regime," the statement read.

The latest action by North Korea came as U.S. President Joe Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, was in Tokyo for meetings with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts.

In a meeting with South Korea's national security adviser, Cho Tae-yong, and Japan's national security advisor,Takeo Akiba, on Thursday, the trio discussed North Korea's "illicit nuclear and missile programs and most recent provocations and identified next steps to strengthen their co-operation."

Missile, nuclear weapons programs banned

South Korean and U.S. troops took part in joint live-fire exercises on Thursday, in the latest show of force that the allies say is necessary to deter North Korea. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol watched as several thousand troops participated.

A spokesperson for North Korea's Ministry of National Defence said the drills were escalating the military tension in the region and its forces would sternly respond to "any kind of protests or provocations by enemies."

Pyongyang unsuccessfully tried to launch a spy satellite late last month, in its first satellite launch since 2016, with the rocket booster and payload plunging into the sea.

North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs are banned by United Nations Security Council resolutions that have sanctioned the country.

Diplomatic efforts to reduce tensions or persuade Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear arsenal have been stalled.

South Korea sued North Korea on Wednesday for $35 million US in compensation for a liaison office that North Korea blew up in 2020, in a case highlighting the breakdown of ties between the neighbours as the North presses on with its weapons programs.

Separately on Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department said it had imposed sanctions on two China-based North Korean nationals it accused of being involved in the procurement of equipment and materials in support of the country's ballistic missile program.

A Treasury statement said North Korea continued to use a network of representatives abroad, including in China and Iran, to illicitly import components necessary for its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.