![\"North](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/c785591f2ae5c10030b21ff18928b02a.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nNorth Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile over the Sea of Japan, according to Japan and South Korea’s militaries, a day after Pyongyang criticised Japan’s military build-up in the region.<\/p>\n
The launch from North Korea’s eastern coastal Wonsan area was detected about 5pm Thursday, local time, prompting South Korea’s military to bolster its surveillance and share details with the United States and Japan.<\/p>\n
South Korea’s presidential office said it held an emergency security meeting, condemning the launch as a provocative act that violated United Nations Security Council resolutions.<\/p>\n
Authorities in Seoul and Washington were now analysing the missile’s exact specifications.<\/p>\n
Japan’s Defence Ministry said there had been no impact in or around Japan.<\/p>\n
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In this photo provided by the North Korean government, leader Kim Jong Un supervises the test-firing of two types of new anti-air missiles in 2025. (AP: Korean Central News Agency\/Korea News Service\u00a0)<\/p>\n
But the country’s coast guard had urged ships to use caution and notify authorities if any fallen objects were found.<\/p>\n
The ballistic missile launch was North Korea’s first since late June, when it tested a tactical ballistic missile, an upgraded 240-mm multiple-launch rocket system and a 155-mm self-propelled howitzer, North Korean state media KCNA said.<\/p>\n
Thursday’s possible firing comes as the US and South Korean militaries prepare to hold their annual training exercises, aimed at containing the nuclear-armed North, later this month.<\/p>\n
US and South Korean officials say the training is defensive in nature, but North Korea believes the manoeuvres are a practice invasion and often responds with its own missile tests and warlike rhetoric.<\/p>\n
North Korea, which since 2019 has repeatedly declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state, featured among growing regional threats in a recent Japanese government assessment.<\/p>\n
The US military said the missile did not appear to pose an “immediate threat to US personnel or territory, or to our allies”.<\/p>\n
“The United States remains committed to the defence of the US homeland and our allies in the region,” US Pacific Command said in a statement.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/3841d54646bd34dadbe7f499ca44e443.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Japan raised its military expenditure significantly last year. (ABC News: Natalie Whiting)<\/p>\n
Japan boosts military with ‘sense of urgency’<\/p>\n
Tokyo’s Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said this week that Japan’s military needed to be boosted with a “sense of urgency and crisis”.<\/p>\n
In a statement carried by North Korean state media on Wednesday, Kim Yo Jong \u2014 the sister of leader Kim Jong Un \u2014 said Pyongyang’s “leadership will set up additional military options which are obviously due to Japan’s transformation”.<\/p>\n