North Korea on Sunday morning deployed what may have been a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan, South Korea officials said.
North Korea on Sunday morning deployed what may have been a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan, South Korea officials said.
The projectile was North Korea’s first missile test-firing since Donald Trump became U. S. president last month, and its first provocation since leader Kim Jong Un boasted of his country’s goal to deploy an intercontinental ballistic missile.
The type of missile, launched just before 8 a.m. local time from a western province in North Korea, had not yet been identified. Neither had its flight path, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.
North Korea is prohibited from carrying out ballistic missile launches under United Nations Security Council resolutions aimed in part at curbing the country’s development of nuclear weapons.
At a brief news conference late Saturday night with President Trump in Florida, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe called the missile launch “absolutely intolerable. ”
“North Korea must fully comply with the relevant U. N. Security Council resolutions,” he said.
America’s top defense official was expected to confront thorny policy issues in Asia — including North Korea’s advancing nuclear program and a planned missile defense system that has angered China — during his first official foreign trip.
But a key goal for Defense Secretary James N. Mattis , analysts…
America’s top defense official was expected to confront thorny policy issues in Asia — including North Korea’s advancing nuclear program and a planned missile defense system that has angered China — during his first official foreign trip.
But a key goal for Defense Secretary James N. Mattis , analysts…
Trump, in a one-sentence statement, did not address the launch directly but said the U. S. stands behind Japan, “it’s great ally, 100%.” He and Abe vowed to strengthen the U. S.-Japan alliance and left the stage without taking questions.
South Korea’s acting leader, Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, responded to the test Sunday morning during a meeting about a recent avian influenza outbreak.
“North Korea fired a projectile that appears to be a ballistic missile,” he said.
