North Korea says live-fire drill showed 'huge destructive power' of concentrated fire

North Korea said on Monday that it had carried out a joint live-fire drill involving missiles, artillery and drones, which it said demonstrated "the huge destructive power of concentration fire."

The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Saturday's drill was intended to familiarise troops with the procedure for operating an integrated firepower control system. South Korea's military said earlier that it had detected short-range ballistic missile launches from the Wonsan area on North Korea's eastern coast on Saturday morning.

After observing the exercise, Marshal Pak Jong Chon said it would "improve the level of specialisation to bring down the enemy's armed forces organisationally and structurally once an order is issued." He added that the weapons systems deployed had demonstrated "the huge destructive power of concentration fire," according to KCNA.

Claims made by North Korea about its weapons tests are extremely difficult to verify independently, as the country does not permit outside inspection of its military programmes.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles fired on Saturday flew about 250 kilometres each, in a direction towards North Korea's eastern waters. The flight distances indicate the weapons are designed to strike targets in South Korea.

The firing drill marked North Korea's first publicly reported ballistic missile launches in about three weeks.

Such launches are prohibited under United Nations Security Council resolutions, which bar North Korea from conducting ballistic missile activity. The two Koreas remain technically at war, since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump scaled back a major bilateral military drill with South Korea, citing what he described as a good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The move appeared to be an effort to revive diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang. North Korea rebuffed the overture, saying that merely shortening the drill would not change its "provocative, aggressive nature."

Experts say Mr. Kim is likely to believe he holds greater leverage in any future talks with the United States than he did when he first met Mr. Trump in 2018-19, given the expansion of North Korea's nuclear arsenal and its deepened ties with Russia and China.

Mr. Kim said earlier this year that he could return to talks if the United States drops what he calls its "hostile policy" towards his country and respects what he describes as the North's status as a nuclear state. Washington has maintained that North Korea must give up its nuclear weapons programme, a demand Pyongyang has repeatedly rejected.

There has been no immediate response from South Korea's presidential office or from the United States to Monday's statement. Analysts note that North Korea typically publicises such drills through state media a day or two after they occur, and that the language used is often aimed as much at a domestic audience as at foreign governments.

Saturday's launches were monitored by South Korean and Japanese authorities, who routinely track projectiles fired from North Korean territory. No damage or casualties have been reported.