SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired a ballistic missile toward the sea off its east coast on Saturday, South Korea and Japan said, its latest missile launch this year — a day after Pyongyang rejected Seoul’s demand for an apology over land mines that seriously wounded South Korean soldiers in the Demilitarized Zone.
The missile was launched from the Wonsan area at around 6:30 a.m. on Saturday and flew more than 700 kilometers (434 miles), South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, according to Reuters. Seoul and Washington were analyzing the test for details. Japan’s defense ministry said the object appeared to be a ballistic missile and had come down, and the coast guard warned ships in the area to take precautions.
South Korea’s presidential office said its national security council convened an emergency meeting on Saturday to assess the situation. Seoul’s military said it had raised monitoring for further launches and would share intelligence with the United States and Japan. The U.S. Pacific Command said the launch did not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to allies.
The launch came after Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, issued a statement on Friday dismissing Seoul’s demand for an apology for North Korean mines that seriously wounded South Korean soldiers in the DMZ, the heavily fortified 4-kilometer-wide border zone between the two Koreas. South Korea said this week that North Korean mines caused the blast that seriously injured two soldiers on a reconnaissance mission inside the zone.
North Korea has launched missile tests on more than 10 occasions so far this year, Reuters reported, sometimes saying it was testing new types of weapons systems. Some of the tests came after Pyongyang protested joint military drills between Seoul and Washington. North Korea has in recent years disavowed reconciliation and unification as national goals, describing the South as its principal adversary.