S.Korean Prez defends watching movie on day Pyongyang fired artillery shots

Seoul, June 13 (IANS) South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on Monday said that there was nothing wrong with him and First Lady Kim Keon-hee watching a movie the previous day shortly after North Korea fired artillery shots because the government took necessary steps in response.

Yoon and the First Lady watched the Cannes award-winning film 'Broker' at a movie theatre in Seoul on Sunday, reports Yonhap News Agency.

But some critics said it was inappropriate for the President to watch a movie at a time when the North had fired shots from a presumed multiple rocket launcher hours earlier

"There's nothing to be suspicious about," Yoon said as he arrived for work when a reporter suggested people could have questions about why the president went to see a movie.

"If a multiple rocket launcher was the equivalent of a missile, then we would take steps accordingly, but a multiple rocket launcher is not equivalent to a missile, so we took the step that was needed," he said.

The shots were detected between 8.07 a.m. and 11.03 a.m. on Sunday morning.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) only said that it had detected "several trajectories", but gave no additional details, such as the origin of the firing.

The launch came a week after North Korea fired eight short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea.