SEOUL, Aug. 21 (Yonhap) -- North Korea stayed silent Friday on the ballistic missiles it launched the previous day, marking the third straight time Pyongyang has departed from its usual practice of announcing such launches the following morning.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and the Rodong Sinmun, the most widely read newspaper in the country, had made no mention of the launch as of 6:30 a.m.

Such silence, however, is not without precedent. North Korea has occasionally kept launches out of its state media when they offered little propaganda value.

Pyongyang fired more than 10 short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea on Thursday, amid an ongoing South Korea-U.S. military exercise that it has decried as rehearsals for war.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said the missiles flew approximately 300 km, with further analysis ongoing.

North Korea's latest missile launches came even as Trump sought to reopen a diplomatic channel with Pyongyang, having ordered the scaling back of an ongoing allied military exercise in a conciliatory gesture toward North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

They also came about a week after Pyongyang fired a short-range ballistic missile eastward on Aug. 12, and roughly two weeks after it fired another short-range ballistic missile on Aug. 6. Pyongyang has remained silent about both launches.

jaeyeon.woo@yna.co.kr

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