North Korea fires two missiles to protest South Korea military drills

North Korea fired two short-range missiles off its east coast on Monday, a South Korean military official said.

North Korea regularly conducts such test firings of missiles, rockets and artillery, and they are often timed to express the country's dissatisfaction with actions by the United States and South Korea. Monday was the start of joint military drills by the two nations that will run until the end of April.

Early Monday morning, two missiles launched from North Korea's west coast flew about 310 miles before landing in waters off the east coast, according to South Korea's Defense Ministry. Spokesman Kim Min-seok called the launches an "armed protest" against the South Korea-U.S. drills and a challenge to peace on the Korean Peninsula.

The annual U.S.-South Korean military drills inevitably lead to angry North Korean rhetoric, although the allies say they are purely defensive.

"The only means to cope with the aggression and war by the U.S. imperialists and their followers is neither dialogue nor peace. They should be dealt with only by merciless strikes," an unidentified spokesman for the North Korean military's general staff said in a statement carried by state media.

He said the U.S.-South Korean drills are aimed at conquering the North's capital, Pyongyang, and removing its leadership.

During the 2013 drills, tension rose amid North Korean rhetoric that included vows of nuclear strikes on Washington and Seoul.

The rival Koreas have floated the possibility of holding what would be the third summit between their leaders since the countries were divided 70 years ago. But they have been at odds in recent weeks over terms, and prospects for talks seem dim.

North Korea separately told the U.S. that it was willing to impose a temporary moratorium on its nuclear tests if Washington cancels the joint military drills with South Korea. But the U.S. rejected the overture, calling it an "implicit threat."

North Korea last year conducted an unusually large number of missile and other weapons tests, drawing protests from South Korea. The North still proposed a set of measures that it said would lower tensions, but South Korea rebuffed them, saying the North must first take steps toward nuclear disarmament.

The United Nations has imposed sanctions banning North Korea from launching longer-range ballistic missiles but not short-range missiles.

The Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Wire services