South Korea says there are no signs that North Korea is preparing to launch more missiles, a day after the Stalinist country fired a barrage of short-range missiles into the Yellow Sea.
A South Korean military official said Saturday that there are no unusual moves in the North that would indicate further missile firings.
The North's navy fired three ship-to-ship missiles in the waters off the peninsula's west coast Friday morning.
A spokesman for South Korea's presidential office downplayed the incident, saying the launchings appeared to be part of routine military training. He said Seoul believes the North does not want inter-Korean relations to deteriorate.
A White House spokesman described Friday's tests as "not constructive," and he urged North Korea to instead focus on dismantling its nuclear facilities.
Also Friday, North Korea threatened to stop the disabling of its nuclear complex because of what it termed unreasonable U.S. demands.
In Washington, a State Department spokesman said the United States is not about to give up on diplomacy with North Korea despite the week's events. He said considerable progress has been made on disabling North Korea's Yongbyon reactor.
Many experts see North Korea's moves as a show of displeasure with hardening policy approaches by South Korea and the United States.
Thursday, Pyongyang expelled South Korean officials working at a joint North-South industrial complex.
Under a six-nation deal reached in February 2007, North Korea was supposed to provide a list of all of its nuclear programs by the end of last year, but Washington says the list was not complete.
Source: By VOA News
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