North Korea fired two ballistic missiles on Sunday towards the sea off the Korean Peninsula’s east coast on Sunday, according to authorities in South Korea and Japan.
Seoul “strongly condemned” Pyongyang for escalating tensions after firing two medium-range missiles around 500km into the East Sea between South Korea and Japan.
“South Korean and the United States intelligence authorities are conducting a thorough analysis, factoring recent trends related to North Korea's missile development,” the country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement.
Japan's Vice Defence Minister Toshiro Ino said the missiles seemed to have landed outside Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and there had been no report of damages.
“It threatens the peace and security of our country, this region and the international community, and it is absolutely unacceptable,” he said.
South Korea’s presidential office said that the North’s continued provocations and development of nuclear weapons would endanger the regime.
The missile launch on Sunday is the North’s first public weapons test since firing its developmental, long-range Hwasong-17 ICBM last month.
The weapon is capable is reaching the entire US homeland.
On Friday, Pyongyang said it had tested a “high-thrust solid-fuel motor” for a new strategic weapon.
Experts said that North Korea would likely use the motor to build a solid-fuelled ICBM, which is among a list of weapons that leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to build to deal with what he calls US hostility.
Kwon Yong Soo, a former professor at Korea National Defense University in South Korea, claimed that North Korea could test fire a solid-fueled ICBM designed to reach the US West Coast as early as the first half of next year.
North Korea has conducted an unprecedented number of missile tests this year.
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In November, North Korea test-fired a missile that Japanese officials claimed had sufficient range to reach the mainland of the USand that landed just 200 km off Japan.
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