North Korea fired several short-range guided missiles into the sea off its east coast Friday in an apparent test launch, South Korean officials and media reports said. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed the launches, but said it was still investigating how many missiles were fired. The launches were apparently part of annual exercises conducted by the North, AP QUOTED the Joint Chiefs as saying in a statement. «The short-range missile launches are believed to be part of a routine exercise that North Korea has conducted annually on the east and the west coasts in the past,» the statement said. The missiles were fired from the communist country's east coast into the sea between Japan and the Korean peninsula, a Joint Chiefs official said on condition of anonymity, citing official protocol. Japan's public broadcaster and other media, citing Japanese and U.S. sources, reported the missiles were surface-to-ship. Japan's Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry could not immediately confirm the reports, but were investigating. Analysts and media reports said the North's test was in response to South Korea's launch of its first destroyer equipped with high-tech Aegis radar technology on Friday. South Korea is now one of only five countries armed with the technology, which will greatly enhance the South's ability to locate, track and shoot down North Korean aircraft and missiles. «North Korea fired them as a warning to South Korea's deployment of Aegis-equipped destroyer,» said Toshimitsu Shigemura, an expert on North Korean issues at Japan's Waseda University. «This shows North Korea, whose navy is rather small, is extremely alarmed.» South Korea's Yonhap news agency cited an unidentified Unification Ministry official as saying the tests would not strain ties because they were apparently part of regular exercises. North and South Korea are planning to hold Cabinet level talks on reconciliation efforts next week in Seoul. «I understand that North Korea test fires short range missiles every year. It's not likely to have any immediate effect on inter-Korean relations,» the official was quoted as saying.
