The flight time is the longest ever for a North Korean missile, local media quoted Japanese Defense Ministry officials as saying. But it did not appear to be a satellite launch, said Hirokazu Matsuno, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary.
The launch took place just as Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, was finishing a trilateral meeting with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts in Hawaii, Reuters reported.
Wednesday’s launch comes after Pyongyang accused the United States of repeatedly flying spy planes into its airspace.
Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of the North Korean leader, on Monday said such reconnaissance flights near its territory would be met with “resolute” consequences and threatened to shoot down such flights. Washington and Seoul denied North Korea’s allegations.
Earlier this week, North Korea’s Defense Ministry accused Washington of stoking tensions by planning to send a nuclear submarine to South Korea for the first time since 1981.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who is in Lithuania to attend the annual NATO summit, convened an emergency meeting of the National Security Council to discuss the missile launch. Yoon earlier said he planned to discuss North Korea’s weapons arsenal with NATO leaders.
Earlier this year, North Korea tested its first solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile — quicker and more mobile weapons compared with liquid-propelled ones — making it more difficult for satellites to spot launch preparations.
North Korea last month launched what it said was a spy satellite, which failed midflight. South Korea’s military retrieved the wreckage from the sea and concluded this month that it “did not have any military use as a reconnaissance satellite.”
Julia Mio Inuma in Tokyo contributed to this report.
