North Korea launched at least one long-range ballistic missile on Saturday, the South Korean military said, ahead of joint US-South Korea exercises scheduled for next week in Washington.
“The South Korean military detected a launch, believed to be that of a long-range ballistic missile, into the East Sea from the Sunan area in Pyongyang at 17:22 (8:22 GMT) today, February 18,” the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) official said in a statement.
Japanese government sources cited by public broadcaster NHK indicated that the missile appears to have been launched at a very wide angle and fell into the waters of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
The Japanese Prime Minister himself, Fumio Kishida, indicated in statements to the media that the missile appears to have fallen about 200 kilometers west of the island of Oshima, located southwest of the northern island of Hokkaido, at around 18:27 local time. (9:27 GMT).
Sunan, where the North Korean capital’s international airport is located, is where the regime has more than once launched its Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the one with the longest potential range in the interior of his arsenal.
Source: Clarin
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