North Korea fired a long-range ballistic missile toward the Sea of Japan on Monday. The South Korean army announced this. Shortly before, on Sunday evening, the country fired a short-range missile. That was the first missile launch by North Korea in about a month.
The Japanese armed forces also reported the launch on Monday. According to the Japanese coast guard, the missile has now landed. It is not yet clear where that happened. According to an earlier statement from the Japanese Ministry of Defense, the missile would probably end up outside the Japanese Economic Zone.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has convened the National Security Council to discuss the missile launch.
The launches follow a warning from South Korea and the United States that any nuclear attack from North Korea on either country would mean the end of the North Korean regime. Allies South Korea and the US held talks in the US capital Washington on Friday about their joint nuclear strategy towards North Korea. Kim Jong Un’s isolated regime condemned both plans to hold a nuclear weapons exercise next year.
All North Korean activities with so-called ballistic missiles, which can be equipped with nuclear warheads, have been banned by the United Nations Security Council. But Pyongyang points to the right to self-defense.
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