By Bernama
Seoul : The presidential office Cheong Wa Dae reacted calmly to news that North Korea launched missiles into the West Sea Friday morning, dismissing it as part of “ordinary military training” in the communist state.
“The government regards North Korea’s missile firing as merely a part of its ordinary military training,” presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan told Yonhap News Agency.
“President Lee Myung-bak was briefed on the news of North Korean missile launches while presiding over a meeting of senior presidential secretaries, but didn’t show any extraordinary response,” said the spokesman.
According to defence sources in Seoul, North Korea test-fired several short-range missiles into the sea off the country’s west coast Friday morning.
Spokesman Lee also said in his formal media briefing, “The South Korean government will just continue to watch the missile-related situation carefully. We’re convinced that North Korea doesn’t want inter-Korean relations to deteriorate.”
In this regard, a Cheong Wa Dae source said that the Seoul government will show a low-key response to any further provocation by North Korea, viewing it as a gesture of protest at the Lee government’s hard-line stance on the communist North’s nuclear weapons programme.
North Korea’s missile firing came after Cheong Wa Dae reacted quietly to North Korea’s expulsion of South Korean officials from an inter-Korean industrial park in the North’s border town of Kaesong on Thursday.
President Lee, while receiving a policy briefing from the Unification Ministry on Wednesday, urged North Korea to completely abandon its nuclear weapons programme to pave the ground for inter-Korean peace and closer economic cooperation.