North Korea fired a ballistic missile out to sea off its east coast on Monday, South Korea’s military reported.
The missile flew 1,100km and landed between the Korean peninsula and Japan, the joint chiefs of staff said.
It was presumed to be a single “medium-range ballistic missile” launched from “somewhere in Pyongyang”, the military said.
The Japanese defence ministry confirmed the projectile splashed down in the Sea of Japan just minutes after its launch was announced.
The launch came as US secretary of state Antony Blinken visited South Korea amid a deepening political crisis sparked by a shortlived declaration of martial law last month by now-impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol.
Mr Blinken was reportedly holding talks with South Korean allies about the North Korean nuclear threat and other pressing matters.
At a year-end political conference, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had pledged to enforce the “toughest” anti-US policy. He had criticised Washington’s attempts to bolster security cooperation with Seoul and Tokyo, referring to it as a “nuclear military bloc for aggression”.
Monday’s launch was North Korea’s first in two months. Pyongyang fired at least seven ballistic missiles off its east coast on 5 November, hours before the US presidential election. The missiles flew to an altitude of 100km and covered a range of 400km before falling into the ocean outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
A few days earlier, North Korea had fired its largest intercontinental missile, which flew a record distance in a demonstration that it could strike the US. The launch of Hwasong-19 had drawn immediate condemnation from the UN as well as the US and its allies.
In spite of sanctions announced by the UN security council, North Korea continues to progress in its nuclear weapons and missile programmes. Mr Kim has consistently rejected “denuclearisation” talks.
According to the 2024 annual threat assessment prepared by US intelligence agencies, Mr Kim views nuclear weapons as central to North Korea’s security and deterrence strategy.
“North Korea also unveiled a purported tactical nuclear warhead and claimed it could be mounted on at least eight delivery systems, including an unmanned underwater vehicle and cruise missiles,” the assessment states.
According to a report published last November by the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a nonprofit based in Washington, North Korea conducted over 220 missile tests between 2012 and 2024 and debuted a variety of missiles with increasing ranges.
