North Korea fired at least one ballistic missile on Monday, the South Korean military said, just hours after launching another short-range missile late at night.
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The Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said in a statement: “North Korea launched an unidentified ballistic missile towards the Sea of Japan.”
The Japanese government announced on the X website (formerly Twitter) that North Korea had launched “what appears to be a ballistic missile,” without providing further information.
The launch comes after South Korea announced that it had detected a short-range ballistic missile launched from the Pyongyang region on Sunday evening.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said that this missile traveled a distance of approximately 570 kilometers before falling into the Sea of Japan, adding that Seoul, Washington and Tokyo “exchanged, in close cooperation, information related to the North Korean ballistic missile.”
Last year, North Korea declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear power and repeatedly said it would never give up its nuclear program, which the regime considers essential to its survival.
Last month, North Korea succeeded in putting its first spy satellite, “Malejeong-1,” into orbit, after two failures in May and August.
The West, Japan and South Korea condemned this launch, as did United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, considering that the use of ballistic missile technologies violates United Nations Security Council resolutions.
