North Korea it said Thursday that it managed to launch ballistic missiles from a train for the first time, as part of its plans to bolster its “war deterrent,” a day after the two Koreas tested missiles hours apart in a military might duel.

The launches underscored the return of tensions on the Korean Peninsula amid a prolonged stalemate in talks led by USA to dismantle the nuclear weapons program of North Korea.

The North Korean Central News Agency reported that Wednesday’s launches were part of an exercise in a “Railroad missile regiment” which, it said, transported the weapons system along the railways in the mountainous region of the center of the country and precisely hit a maritime target 800 kilometers (500 miles) away.

State media showed what appeared to be two different missiles emerging from launchers mounted on train cars amid orange flames on tree-lined railroad tracks.

The armies of South Korea and Japan had said that two short-range ballistic missiles fired by North Korea flew 800 kilometers (500 miles) before landing at sea, within Japan’s exclusive economic zone, outside its territorial waters. . The last time a North Korean missile landed within that area was in October 2019.

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