North Korea test-fired two missiles into the sea early on Wednesday, a news report said, prompting condemnation from Tokyo.
It was the latest of several such launches this week, as South Korean, Japanese and US leaders condemned Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme at a meeting in the Netherlands.
“North Korea fired a ballistic missile at 2:35 am (1735 GMT) and another at 2:45 am” into the waters east of the Korean Peninsula, the South Korean military was cited as saying by Yonhap News Agency.
Japan lodged a protest with North Korea over the latest launch, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said.
At a summit in the Hague Tuesday, South Korean President Park Geun Hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe joined with US President Barack Obama to declare Pyongyang’s nuclear weeapons programme a major threat to security in Asia and the world.
Park and Abe had not met before, even though each has been in office more than a year, amid tensions over a territorial spat and Japanese communication over the Second World War.
Japan and South Korea are both formal allies of the United States.
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.