Japan’s Coast Guard said the missile had likely already landed, and Japanese broadcaster NHK said the projectile appears to have landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, citing unnamed Japanese Defense Ministry sources.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said several missiles were launched from an area near Pyongyang toward waters off the country’s east coast. Further details, including the exact range of the missile, were not immediately available.
The latest firing came as top defense officials from around the world, including from the United States and Japan, gathered in Seoul for a two-day security dialogue that began Wednesday. Pyongyang has sought to counter South Korea’s moves to strengthen its defense partnership with the United States and Japan after the three nations signed a pact on military training in July, an agreement that built on a major trilateral summit hosted by President Joe Biden at Camp David in August 2023.
The incident marked North Korea’s first missile launch in more than two months after the Kim regime fired two ballistic missiles it said could carry super-large 4.5-ton warheads on July 1. South Korea’s military said one of those missiles had problems in flight and disappeared from radar after flying about 120 kilometers (75 miles), indicating a failed test.
On June 26, North Korea claimed to have successfully conducted a test of a multi-warhead missile system. Seoul said the launch failed and accused Kim’s regime of using “deception and exaggeration” to cover up a missile that exploded in the early stages of flight.
Pyongyang has fired more than 30 ballistic missiles and one space rocket so far this year, surpassing its total for 2023. The tally is still short of the more than 70 ballistic missiles tested in 2022, a record for the state.
North Korea may be considering conducting a nuclear test around the time of the U.S. presidential election in November to raise its profile, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s national security adviser Shin Wonsik said in July when he served as defense minister.
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