North Korea test-fires ballistic missiles
North Korea test-fired two missiles into the sea early
Wednesday, an official in Seoul said, prompting condemnation from South
Korea, Japan and the United States.
It was the latest
of several such launches this week, as South Korean, Japanese and US
leaders criticised North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme at a meeting
in the Netherlands.
The missiles were fired from
north of Pyongyang and flew around 650 kilometres before falling into
the waters east of the Korean Peninsula, a spokesman for the South’s
Defence Ministry said.
“North Korea fired a ballistic
missile at 2:35 am (1735 GMT) and another at 2:45 am,” the South Korean
military was cited as saying by Yonhap News Agency.
The
United States said the latest launches of No-Dong type missiles, as
well as those of Scud missiles on March 3 and February 27, violated UN
Security Council resolutions that established missile moratoriums for
Pyongyang.
In addition, “it does not appear that
North Korea issued any maritime notifications providing warning of the
launches,” US State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf said.
The
US would coordinate with allies and in the Security Council to take
“appropriate measures” to respond to the “troubling and provocative
escalation” over Pyongyang’s weapons programme, she said.
Japan lodged a protest with North Korea over the latest launch, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said.
At
a summit in The Hague on Tuesday, South Korean President Park Geun Hye
and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe joined with US President Barack
Obama to declare Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme a major threat to
security in Asia and the world.
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