North Korea fired short-range missiles into the sea off its eastern coast for the second time in a week Monday, prompting a warning from South Korea of "reckless provocation."

The missile tests have clearly been timed to coincide with annual South Korea-US military exercises which kicked off a week ago and run until mid-April.

A 75-year-old Australian missionary held in North Korea for allegedly distributing religious materials arrived in China Monday after being deported, an Agence France Presse reporter saw.

Hong Kong-based John Short was arrested after leaving "Bible tracts" in a Buddhist temple in Pyongyang during a tour.

Japanese government and Red Cross officials left Sunday for talks in China with their North Korean counterparts in a rare meeting that might help improve frosty relations.

The delegation headed to Shenyang for the Red Cross talks about possible visits by Japanese to the graves of family members who died in North Korea decades ago, or missions to collect their remains.

South Korea on Friday labeled North Korea's test firing of four short-range missiles a calculated, provocative act timed to coincide with South-U.S. joint military exercises.

North Korea test-fired the missiles into the Sea of Japan on Thursday, three days after the joint drills kicked off in the face of vocal opposition from Pyongyang.

North Korea test-fired four short-range missiles into the sea Thursday, Seoul's defense ministry said, in an apparent show of force to coincide with South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises.

A ministry spokesman told Agence France Presse the missiles, with an estimated range of 200 kilometers (125 miles), were fired off the east coast of North Korea.

Government officials from Japan and North Korea will hold talks in China next Monday, the first such meeting since November 2012, the Japanese foreign ministry and Red Cross Society said Thursday.

The talks will be held on the sidelines of meetings by Red Cross officials from the two countries, a Japanese Red Cross spokesman said.

A South Korean missionary arrested in North Korea in October told a news conference staged in Pyongyang on Thursday that he had been working for South Korean intelligence.

Kim Jeong-Wook, wearing a dark suit and in apparent good health, detailed a number of "anti-government" activities as he read out a statement.

Australia said it remained in the dark Thursday on the whereabouts or wellbeing of a Christian missionary detained in North Korea after leaving a pamphlet in a Buddhist temple.

Hong Kong-based Australian citizen John Short, 75, was taken from his Pyongyang hotel by police earlier this month for allegedly distributing Korean-language Christian pamphlets and attempting to proselytise.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday called for global attention on North Korea, denouncing the isolated Asian nation as "an evil, evil place."

"North Korea is one of the most closed and cruel places on earth. There's no question about it. There's evil that is taking place there that all of us ought to be deeply and are deeply concerned about," the top U.S. diplomat said.

South Korean President Park Geun Hye vowed Tuesday to map out a fresh path to Korean reunification, building on a recent thaw in cross-border ties despite the North's anger over South-U.S. military drills.

In a speech marking her first year in office, Park, who had campaigned on a promise of greater engagement with Pyongyang, said she was setting up a committee under her direct control to work out "systematic and constructive" plans for unifying the divided peninsula.