Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi speaks to reporters at the Defense Ministry in Tokyo on Sunday following North Korea’s launch of at least two ballistic missiles. | JIJI
North Korea launched at least two ballistic missiles on Sunday, according to Japan’s Defense Ministry, marking its first missile tests of the year as the nuclear-armed state seeks to maintain international attention, News.Az reports, citing The Japan Times.
Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said both missiles had landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from its coast, in the Sea of Japan.
“North Korea’s series of actions, including repeated ballistic missile launches, threaten the peace and security of our region and the international community,” Koizumi said, adding that Japan was coordinating closely with the United States and South Korea.
He said the missiles, which were fired from an area near Pyongyang and flew on “irregular trajectories,” had traveled 900 and 950 km, respectively — a distance that puts a large section of southern Japan within striking distance, including key U.S. and Self-Defense Forces bases.
North Korea has worked in recent years to refine technologies that help its missiles evade defenses, including weapons that fly on trajectories that make intercepting them difficult.
South Korea’s military also confirmed the launches of “multiple ballistic missiles,” while the U.S. military’s Indo-Pacific Command said the launches did not pose “an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to our allies.”
South Korea’s national security office held an emergency meeting at the presidential Blue House and urged Pyongyang to cease provocations.
“North Korea’s launch of ballistic missiles constitutes a provocative act in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions, and we urge the North to cease such actions,” the office said in a statement.