SEOUL, (Reuters) – North Korea fired 25 short-range rockets into the sea off the east of the Korean peninsula yesterday, an unusually large number but they were obsolete weapons, probably 40 years old, South Korea’s Defence Ministry said.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency earlier reported that the North had fired 10 rockets that flew 70 km (45 miles) before splashing into the sea.
North Korea is not banned from short-range missile launches under U.N. sanctions and frequently tests its arsenal.
South Korea’s Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said it was likely because of the age of the rockets that the North fired a barrage of them in one day, and they were hardly the destructive weapons that they may have been in the 1960s.
“But there’s no question in our view that it’s a provocative action and a show of force that they fired that many,” Kim said, adding the North had put aircrafts and vessels that may have been in the area in grave danger by issuing no advance warning.
