Pyongyang fires ground-to-air missile

North Korea on Friday fired off a ground-to-air missile into its eastern waters, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The short-range missile, which flew about 100 km, was launched around 12.45 p.m. from the eastern region near the coast of Seondeok in South Hamgyeong province, Xinhua news agency reported.

The launch came just three days after Pyongyang fired one round of its new 300-mm multiple rocket launcher in north-eastern direction.

With projectile launches in recent weeks, Pyongyang has shown its protest against the ongoing US-South Korea joint military exercises and newly-adopted international sanctions on Pyongyang.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye, who is attending the two-day Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C., reiterated her position on Thursday of focusing on sanctions, rather than dialogue, to make North Korea abandon its nuclear program.

This year, North Korea started off by detonating what it claimed was its hydrogen bomb on January 6, the fourth of its nuclear tests, followed by the launch of a long-range rocket, which was condemned as a disguised test of ballistic missile technology, on February 7.