SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — North Korea has fired a long-range ballistic missile into waters off its east coast, South Korean and Japanese authorities said Saturday, in what is the nuclear-armed state’s second provocative missile fire this year.
According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, the ballistic missile is suspected to be a long-range missile that was launched from the Sunan area near the capital, Pyongyang, at 5:22 p.m. local time.
The military is analyzing the launch’s specifications, such as flight distance, altitude and speed.
Japan’s Defense Ministry characterized the missile as an “ICBM-class” missile that flew for more than an hour before landing some 200 kilometers west of Hokkaido’s Oshima Island. Likely fired in a lofted trajectory, it put the missile’s top altitude at 5,700 kilometers and the distance at 900 kilometers, landing within Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
Saturday’s missile fire follows a warning issued by North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, that U.S.-planned actions, including 20 joint military exercises with South Korea this year, would again plunge the Korean Peninsula “into the grave vortex of escalating tension.”
In its statement, posted on state media Korean Central News Agency on Friday, it also blasted Washington for “coercively convoking” a United Nations Security Council meeting “to take issue with [North Korea’s] right to self-defense.”
The Security Council had convened a closed-door meeting in New York on Thursday afternoon to discuss North Korea and nonproliferation, according to its website.
Though little is known of the contents of that meeting, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield tweeted that a “candid discussion” was had on North Korea’s “unlawful WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and ballistic missile advancements. The Council cannot stay silent in the face of the growing threat,” she added.
Among those briefing meeting participants was International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi. He tweeted Friday, “The DPRK’s nuclear activities continue to be a cause for serious concern… @IAEAorg continues to maintain its enhanced readiness to play its essential role in verifying North Korea’s nuclear programme.”
DPRK is the acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The last ballistic fire by North Korea, Jan. 1, was a short-range missile.
