TOKYO / SEOUL – The missile launched today by North Korea in its latest weapons test flew over the north of the Japanese archipelago, as announced by the Japanese authorities, who activated the alert in that area due to the trajectory of the projectile.
The missile was fired at about 7: 23 pm, local time on Tuesday, into the Sea of Japan, as reported by the South Korean Army, while the Japanese government said that it fell at an unspecified point in the sea, after activating the civil alert in the prefectures of Hokkaido and Aomori, the northernmost of the archipelago.
“North Korea today launched a missile to the east. This ballistic missile passed over the Tohoku region (northern Japan), and we consider it to have landed in waters outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone around 7: 44 pm (local time)”, said the spokesman for the Japanese Executive, Hirokazu Matsuno, at a press conference.
The spokesman also pointed out that there is no evidence of damage to aircraft or vessels due to the impact of the missile.
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) detailed, for its part, that it was presumably an “intermediate-range ballistic missile” launched from Jagang province, located to the north of the neighboring country and adjoining China, in a statement.
This is the first time that Japan activates its civil alert system due to the trajectory of a missile from the 15 September 2017, when another projectile failed rkorean flew over Hokkaido.
The new North Korean launch takes place after Tokyo, Washington and Seoul carried out joint exercises last week in the Sea of Japan in order to counter North Korean weapons developments of SLBM (ballistic missiles fired from a submersible)”, in which the US aircraft carrier USS “Ronald Reagan” participated.
North Korea has made another four rounds of missile launches since last day 25 of September, all of them with short-range ballistic projectiles, so today’s test would be the longest range of his last test series.