SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) – North Korea fired what could be a ballistic missile on Sunday, military officials in South Korea and Japan said, in what would be the first test since the nuclear-armed country conducted a record number of launches in January.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that North Korea had fired one suspected ballistic missile toward the sea off its east coast from a location near Sunan, where Pyongyang’s international airport is located.
The airport has been the site of missile tests, including a pair of short-range ballistic missiles fired on Jan. 16.
Japan’s Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said Sunday’s missile may have flown as high as 600 km (400 miles), to a range of 300 km (200 miles).
“There have been frequent launches since the start of the year, and North Korea is continuing to rapidly develop ballistic missile technology,” Kishi said in a televised statement.
North Korea’s last test was on Jan. 30, when it fired a Hwasong-12 intermediate range ballistic missile.
The largest weapon test-fired since 2017, the Hwasong-12 was reported to have flown to an altitude of about 2,000 km (1,200 miles) and range of 800 km (500 miles). That capped a record month of mostly short-range missile launches in January.
Sunday’s launch came less than two weeks ahead of South Korea’s March 9 presidential election, amid fears by some in Seoul and Tokyo that Pyongyang may push ahead with missile development while international attention is focused on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
South Korea’s National Security Council convened an emergency meeting to discuss the launch, according to a statement from the presidential Blue House.
The North has vowed to strengthen its nuclear “war deterrent” and build more powerful weapons.
Last year, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un announced a new five-year plan for developing weapons and issued an ambitious wish list that included hypersonic weapons, satellites, solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles, and submarine-launched nuclear missiles.
Kim has concentrated on expanding his country’s nuclear and missile capabilities since his diplomacy with former president of the United States Donald Trump ended without an agreement in 2019.
Trump took unprecedented steps towards apparently fraternizing North Korea by initiating several rounds of dialogue with it and even walking a number of steps into the country alongside North Korea’s leader.
However, Washington blew, what Pyongyang called, a “golden opportunity” at mending the situation by insisting too much on the North’s denuclearization.
Pyongyang has rebuffed the administration of Trump’s successor Joe Biden’s repeated offers of nuclear negotiations.