By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter

North Korea test-fired a short-range missile on its East Coast, the South Korean government said Friday. It is the sixth missile North Korea has launched since its second nuclear test on Monday.

Pyongyang fired the missile from its Musudan-ri site, and purportedly warned it will take fresh ``self-defense" steps, if the global community seeks sanctions against the action.

``We will inevitably have to take additional self-defense measures if the U.N. Security Council attempts to provoke us any further," the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement via the official Korean Central News Agency.

The North strongly condemned the Security Council in the statement, by adding that ``its five permanent members have conducted 99.99 percent of the total nuclear tests so far.''

The Security Council has been discussing how to respond to the North's nuclear test. It is not clear yet if the resolution will include new sanctions.

No further details were revealed from Seoul, but a government official was quoted by the Yonhap News Agency as saying the missile is ``a new type of ground-to-air missile with an estimated range of 260 kilometers."

On the East Sea this week, North Korea has fired two missiles Monday and three more Tuesday.

The Kim Jong-il regime has been sharply raising the level of threatening moves to the world outside of late. On Wednesday, Pyongyang warned it can't guarantee the safety of U.S. and South Korean ships, in a response to the Seoul announcement that it will join a U.S.-led global efforts to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

Last month, it announced an end to the ongoing negotiations on denuclearization and said it will restart the atomic facility in Yongbyon, after the Security Council decided to strengthen sanctions against its rocket launch on April 5.

hckim@koreatimes.co.kr