SEOUL, March 28: North Korea test-fired a battery of short-range missiles on Friday in what analysts saw as a show of the reclusive state’s anger at Washington and the new conservative government in Seoul.

The launch comes a day after North Koreans expelled South Korean officials from a joint industrial complex north of the border, after Seoul told its neighbour to “improve its human rights record” and stop dragging its feet in nuclear disarmament talks if it wanted to receive aid to keep its economy afloat.

A South Korean presidential spokesman told a news briefing that North Korea had fired short-range missiles as part of a military exercise. Local news reports said the three were ship-to-ship missiles launched into the sea off the west coast.

“We believe the North does not want a deterioration of relations between the South and the North,” spokesman Lee Dong-kwan told reporters.

In Washington, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe called for an end to missile testing, which he said was “not constructive”.

“North Korea should focus on the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and deliver a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear weapons programmes, and nuclear proliferation activities and to complete the agreed disablement,” Johndroe said.

New South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has said he wants to end the “free ride” given to North Korea under 10 years of left-leaning presidents who gave billions in aid while asking for little in return, seeing it as the price to pay for stability.Pyongyang was basically sending two messages with the launch, Keio University Korea expert Masao Okonogi said in Tokyo. One was aimed at the United States after talks in Geneva, showing the North’s dissatisfaction with Washington’s pressure to “come clean on uranium enrichment” and ties with Syria, he said. The other was a riposte to the Lee government’s shift in stance.

“They are warning Seoul not to go back on things agreed between the North and the South,” Okonogi said.—Reuters