SEOUL: North Korea fired a ballistic missile from the sea on Wednesday, South Korea’s military said, and a suggestion that it may have tested an underwater-launched missile for the first time in three years ahead of a resumption of nuclear talks with the United States this weekend.
South Korea’s military said North Korea may have fired a submarine-based ballistic missile, which travelled 450km and reached an altitude of 910km into space before falling in the sea.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the missile may have separated during flight, with at least one piece falling in the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) near the south-western prefecture of Shimane.
If confirmed, it would be the first time North Korea has launched an undersea missile in three years.
“The launch of this type of ballistic missile is a violation of United Nations resolutions. Japan strongly protests and condemns the action,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters in an emergency news conference.
Japan lodged an immediate protest, saying the missile landed inside Japan’s economic exclusive zone – the first time a North Korean missile has landed that close to Japan since November 2017. The EEZ covers waters as far as 370 kilometres (230 miles) from the coast.
Tokyo had initially said that two ballistic missiles had been launched, but later said that two sections of the same missile appeared to have crashed into the sea.
The launch was the ninth since Donald Trump and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, met at the heavily guarded demilitarised zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas in June, and came soon after Pyongyang announced it would hold working-level talks with the US on Saturday – a development that could potentially break months of stalemate over the North’s nuclear weapons programme.
