North Korea reportedly test-fired several short-range missiles off its western coast Friday, the communist nation's latest apparent angry response to the new South Korean government's tougher stance on Pyongyang.
The launches came as the North issued a stern rebuke to Washington over an impasse at nuclear disarmament talks, warning that the Americans' attitude could "gravely" affect the continuing disablement of Pyongyang's atomic facilities.
The firing of three ship-to-ship missiles happened at around 10:30 a.m. (0130 GMT), South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing unidentified government officials.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Ministry said they were checking on the report, which came one day after South Korea withdrew officials from a joint industrial zone with North Korea at Pyongyang's request.
That move was prompted by the North's anger over South Korean statements that any expansion of the project in the border city of Kaesong would only happen if the North resolved the international standoff over its nuclear weapons.
The North showed signs earlier this week it was preparing to test short-range missiles as part of routine training, Yonhap reported. The country declared a no-sailing zone off the coastal city of Nampo and placed a military boat equipped with anti-ship missiles on standby, according to the news agency.
But the North appeared to have dropped the plan, after it did not fire a missile at that time, Yonhap said.
The North regularly test fires missiles, and its long-range models are believed able to possibly reach as far as the western coast of the United States. The country conducted its first-and-only nuclear bomb test in October 2006, but it is not known to have a weapon design able to fit inside a missile warhead.
North Korea shut down its sole operating nuclear reactor and has taken steps to disable its main atomic facilities under a landmark disarmament-for-aid deal reached last year with the United States and other regional powers.
However, negotiations on further disarmament have hit an impasse over the North's pledge to give a full declaration of its nuclear programs.
North Korea has claimed it gave the U.S. a nuclear list in November, but Washington said the North never produced a "complete and correct" declaration that would address all its past atomic activity.
On Friday, the North blamed Washington for the deadlocked talks and warned it would slow ongoing disablement of its atomic facilities.
The North's Foreign Ministry said the country has done its best to clear U.S. suspicions that it pursued a uranium-based atomic bomb program and also transferred nuclear technology to Syria, but Washington has been sticking to its "wrong" claims.
Pyongyang has "never dreamed" of doing either, it said in a statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency, "and these things will not happen in the future too."
"The United States is clinging to shabby magic to make us a criminal in order to save face," the ministry said. "If the United States keeps delaying the resolution of the nuclear issue ... it could gravely affect disablement of nuclear facilities."
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Associated Press writer Jae-soon Chang contributed to this report.
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