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Article snippet: TOKYO — North Korea fired several cruise missiles from its east coast on Thursday, the South Korean military said. It was the country’s fourth missile test in four weeks, and it occurred just a day after South Korea’s new president said his government was suspending the deployment of an American antimissile system. According to a statement from South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff, reported by the Yonhap news agency, the missiles appeared to be surface-to-ship missiles and flew toward the ocean. It was the 10th time this year that North Korea tested missiles, and it came less than a week after the United Nations Security Council expanded sanctions against Pyongyang over previous missile tests. Analysts said that it appeared North Korea had test-fired cruise missiles similar to Russia’s Kh-35, which was demonstrated during a military parade in Pyongyang in April and is designed to sink enemy ships. “When they showed all that stuff off at the parade, they put down a marker that they were going to test all of it,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. The launches underscored concerns in Seoul, Tokyo and Washington over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and advances in its missile technology. The North recently test-fired a series of missiles that would give the United States little warning of an attack. President Moon Jae-in of South Korea convened the first meeting of his National ... Link to the full article to read more