SEOUL, KOREA - NORTH Korea has fired three short-range missiles off its west coast, Yonhap news agency reported.

The South Korean agency, quoting a government source, said the missiles were fired on Friday into the Yellow Sea off Jeungsan County, some 40 kilometres west of Pyongyang.

The testing was part of a military training exercise involving Russian-designed Styx ship-to-ship missiles with a range of 46 kilometres, the report said on Saturday.

'The missile launch, like the test-firing conducted on March 28, is part of normal military training aimed at testing the performance of the missiles and improving operational readiness,' the source was quoted in the report saying.

'We don't comment on any matter of intelligence,' he said.

The report came after South and North Korean nuclear envoys met in Beijing on Friday for about an hour over attempts to end the North's nuclear programme.

North Korea fired three or four missiles of the same type on March 28 in what was then described by the South Korean government as 'part of a regular military exercise'.

But the move raised the stakes in North Korea's nuclear dispute with South Korea and the United States, which are attempting to secure a full declaration of North Korea's atomic activities.

North Korea reached a landmark six-party deal last year with the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

Under the deal, it agreed to disable nuclear plants at its key Yongbyon facility in exchange for aid and diplomatic recognition.

As part of that agreement, Pyongyang was to hand over a full declaration of all its nuclear activities by Dec 31 last year.

But disputes over the declaration have blocked the start of the final phase of the process - the permanent dismantling of the plants and the handover of all atomic material. -- AFP