North Korea fired three short-range missiles off its west coast on Friday, the South's Yonhap news agency cited government officials as saying, on a day Pyongyang's media also launched a tirade of abuse at President Lee Myung-bak.
" it appears the firing of the missiles was part of a regular exercise to check the performance," Yonhap quoted an unnamed South Korean Defence Ministry as saying on Saturday. A similar launch in March riled regional tensions and was seen by analysts as a display of anger at Washington and Lee's new conservative government in Seoul.
North Korea has more than 1,000 missiles, at least 800 of them ballistic, experts have said.