North Korea Launches Ballistic Missile Into Sea, Say South Korea And Japan

The Japan Coast Guard also confirmed that what was fired by North Korea could be a ballistic missile.

Representative Photo | The launch, if confirmed, would be the North’s third round of weapons tests since the U.S. and South Korean militaries began their joint military drills last week.

Source : PTI

New Delhi: North Korea on Sunday morning fired a ballistic missile toward the sea off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported citing South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), according to Reuters.

The Japan Coast Guard also confirmed that what was fired by North Korea could be a ballistic missile.

Further launch details were not immediately available, the news agency Associated Press reported.

The North on Thursday fired a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile into the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan, hours before South Korea's president flew to Tokyo for a summit that discussed ways to counter the nuclear-armed North.

After the launch of the missile on Thursday, North Korea confirmed they had fired it, adding that it was a “stronger warning” to the US and South Korea for their provocative and aggressive large-scale war drills.

The launch would be the North’s fourth round of weapons tests since the U.S. and South Korean militaries began joint military drills last week, according to AP.

In the state news agency, KCNA, North Korea said, “Under the grave situation in which the most unstable security environment is being created in the Korean peninsula due to the frantic, provocative and aggressive large-scale war drills conducted by the US and the south Korean puppet traitors against the DPRK, the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) saw to it that a launching drill of the ICBM Hwasongpho-17 was conducted on March 16.”

South Korean and American forces are conducting 11-day joint military drills, called "Freedom Shield 23." 

Meanwhile, North Korea claimed that about 800,000 civilians have volunteered to join the nation’s military to fight against the US, ANI reported citing CNN.

North Korea’s state newspaper Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported that around 800,000 students and workers alone have expressed their desire to join the military to counter the US.

(Wit agency inputs)