North Korea Fires More Missiles as Seoul Puts Off U.S. Defense System

 North Korea fired several cruise missiles from its east coast on Thursday, the South Korean military said. It was the country’s fourth missile test in four weeks, and it occurred just a day after South Korea’s new president said his government was suspending the deployment of an American antimissile system.

According to a statement from South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff, reported by the Yonhap news agency, the missiles appeared to be surface-to-ship missiles and flew toward the ocean.

It was the 10th time this year that North Korea tested missiles, and it came less than a week after the United Nations Security Council expanded sanctions against Pyongyang over previous missile tests.

Analysts said that it appeared North Korea had test-fired cruise missiles similar to Russia’s Kh-35, which was demonstrated during a military parade in Pyongyang in April and is designed to sink enemy ships.Continue reading the main storyRELATED COVERAGE

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“When they showed all that stuff off at the parade, they put down a marker that they were going to test all of it,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.