North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles towards the eastern waters of the peninsula — the seventh launch in two weeks of weapons tests after South Korea and the United States finished their last round of naval drills.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles were fired from the southeastern coastal city of Munchon early on Sunday. The first ballistic missile was fired at about 1:47am local time while the second one was launched six minutes later.
The Japanese government also stated that North Korea had fired ballistic missiles.
The two missiles reached an altitude of 100km (60 miles) and covered a range of 350km (217 miles), Japan’s State Minister of Defence Toshiro Ino told reporters.
Both fell outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, and authorities were looking into what kind of missiles were launched, including the possibility that they were submarine-launched ballistic missiles, he said.
South Korea’s military condemned the launches as a “serious provocation” that undermined peace, noting they were a “clear violation” of UN Security Council resolutions
