North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast toward the Sea of Japan on Wednesday morning, less than a week after it tested similar missiles, South Korea's military said.

Wednesday's missiles were fired from the Kalma area of Wonsan in the eastern part of the North at 5:06 a.m. and 5:27 a.m. and flew about 250 kilometers while reaching an altitude of about 30 km, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

A JCS official told reporters that the military is analyzing the missiles with the possibility in mind that they may be similar in type to the missiles launched last Thursday.

North Korea on Thursday launched two short-range ballistic missiles from near the Hodo Peninsula, not far from Wonsan. The launch was characterized by North Korea as a warning to the South against holding a joint military exercise with the United States next month.

The U.S.-South Korea joint military exercise is scheduled to be held from Aug. 5 to 20, according to South Korean media. With Seoul appearing ready to go ahead with the exercise, the latest missile launches could be seen as a further North Korean response to it.

Wednesday's projectiles fell into the sea before reaching Japan's exclusive economic zone or territorial waters, according to Japan's Defense Ministry.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the Japanese government has confirmed that the missile firings did not affect the country's security, telling reporters in Tokyo that Japan "will continue to closely cooperate with the United States and others."

Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya said that if the projectiles were ballistic missiles, it would amount to a breach of U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban North Korea from using ballistic missile technology.

(Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe meets the media at his office in Tokyo on July 31, 2019, after North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast toward the Sea of Japan earlier in the day.)

The launch was "extremely regrettable," he told reporters in the central Japan city of Nagoya.

South Korea's Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong Doo said at a seminar that North Korea "should be considered an enemy" if the North continues to make "threats and provocations" against the South.

Chung Eui Yong, director of South Korea's National Security Office, held an emergency meeting of the National Security Council to discuss the North Korean missile launches and the current national security situation, according to presidential office spokeswoman Ko Min Jung.

The U.S. White House issued a statement saying that the United States will continue to monitor the situation closely.

Also Wednesday, some South Korean lawmakers were briefed by the Defense Ministry on North Korea's newly built submarine, which was disclosed for the first time through the North's official media on July 23.

"The new submarine is said to be able to load up to three submarine-launched ballistic missiles," Lee Hye Hoon, chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee in the National Assembly, told reporters, citing the ministry.

North Korea's Korean Central News Agency, reporting that leader Kim Jong Un inspected the submarine, said at the time that the vessel "will perform its duty in the operational waters of the East Sea of Korea and its operational deployment is near at hand."

South Korea's military has said the two missiles launched last Thursday, which it assessed as having flown about 600 km before falling into the Sea of Japan, bore resemblances to Russian Iskander surface-to-surface, short-range ballistic missiles.

A KCNA report on Friday said the "new-type tactical guided weapon" features a "low-altitude gliding and leaping flight orbit" that would make it hard to intercept.

In early May, North Korea fired what resembled Iskander missiles. The missiles tested then are called KN-23.