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North Korea fires missile over Japan North Korea fires missile over Japan
(35 minutes later)
North Korea has fired a missile that passed over northern Japan early on Tuesday, the Japanese government said. North Korea has fired a ballistic missile that passed over Japan in the early hours of Tuesday before landing in the Pacific Ocean, according to Japanese and South Korean officials.
The government’s J-Alert warning system advised people in the area to take precautions, but the public broadcaster NHK said there was no sign of damage. Japan’s J-Alert warning system advised people across a large area of northern Japan to take precautions. Japan’s self-defence forces did not attempt to shoot down the missile and there were no reports of damage from falling debris.
The unprecedented move is the latest act of aggression by the communist state since it fired several short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan three days ago following comments from President Trump that he would meet any threats from North Korea with “fire and fury”. The public broadcaster NHK said the missile had been launched from a site near the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, and passed over Hokkaido – Japan’s northernmost main island – just after 6am local time (2100 GMT). It broke into three parts and landed in the sea east of Hokkaido.
The Japanese military did not attempt to shoot down the missile which was fired from Pyongyang and passed over Japanese territory at about 6.06am local time (2106 GMT) towards the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said the South Korean and US armed forces were analysing the launch and did not immediately confirm how far the missile had travelled.
Despite early reports urging people in Tohoku to take refuge in solid buildings or underground shelters, the missile landed in the sea and is understood to have broken into three pieces. The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said the government was trying to establish the details of the launch and was doing “everything possible” to ensure the safety of the Japanese people. The chief government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, said the missile posed a “serious, grave security threat” to Japan.
Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said he would do all in his power to protect the Japanese public. “We will make utmost efforts to firmly protect the lives of the people,” Abe told reporters in brief remarks as he entered his office for emergency meetings about the missile firing. There were unconfirmed reports that North Korea may have fired several missiles and it was not immediately clear what type of missile had flown over Japanese territory.
South Korea said the North had fired an unidentified projectile early on Tuesday from a region near its capital eastwards towards the sea. Tuesday’s launch may have been a show of defiance towards military drills involving US and South Korean troops as well as a smaller number of personnel from other countries. The drills have coincided with a dramatic rise in tensions on the Korean peninsula after North Korea’s test-launch of two intercontinental ballistic missiles and its threat to target seas off the coast of the US Pacific territory of Guam.
Seoul’s joint chiefs of staff on said the South Korean and US militaries were analysing the launch and did not immediately confirm how far the projectile traveled or where it landed. Seoul and Washington say the exercises are an opportunity for the allies to improve their defensive capabilities, but Pyongyang routinely denounces them as a dress rehearsal for war against North Korea.
More to follow… On Monday, North Korea said it wanted to take its complaints about the Ulchi-Freedom Guardian exercises to the UN security council. Pyongyang denounced the annual manoeuvres as “recklessly provocative” at a time of tensions on the Korean peninsula. In a letter to Egypt, which holds the rotating presidency of the UN security council, it called for urgent talks.
North Korea’s UN ambassador, Ja Song-nam, said the drills were “provocative and aggressive” when the situation on the peninsula was “like a time bomb”.
A spokeswoman for the US Department of State countered that the sole purpose of the exercise was to improve the allies’ ability to defend South Korea. “Our annual joint military exercises are transparent, defence-oriented, and have been carried out regularly and openly under the Combined Forces Command for roughly 40 years,” said Grace Choi of the department’s east Asian and Pacific affairs bureau.
Agencies contributed to this report.