WASHINGTON —
North Korea fired an unidentified ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan early Sunday.
Pyongyang issued no statement about the launch, but experts said it appeared to be a test launch of an intermediate-range rocket, possibly a model capable of reaching targets in Japan. However, they added, there was no evidence that this was a test of a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), a weapon able to reach as far as the West Coast of the United States.
North Korea conducted two unauthorized nuclear test explosions last year and nearly two dozen rocket launches in continuing efforts to expand its nuclear weapons and missile programs. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared in a speech on New Year’s Day that his country’s program to build ICBMs has “reached the final stage.”
Trump, Abe in Florida
At the time of the launch, U.S. President Donald Trump was dining in Florida late Saturday with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. White House officials said they were aware of the missile launch and were closely monitoring the situation.
South Korean military officials said the missile was launched at 7:55 a.m. local time (2255 Saturday UTC) from a military site at Banghyeon, the same place where the North test-launched powerful Musudan rockets twice in October. Such missiles are estimated to have an effective range of about 3,000 kilometers (1,865 miles).
Officials said the rocket crossed the Korean Peninsula from the launch site in western North Korea and headed east over the Sea of Japan, after a flight path of about 500 kilometers (310 miles).
North Korea-watchers reported late in January that the North Korean military had readied two mobile missile launchers, ahead of possible test launches.
World’s demands ignored
For more than a decade, Washington and a vast majority of world governments have demanded that North Korea denuclearize the Korean peninsula. However, Western leaders have yet to devise a plan that would either compel the North to cooperate or create incentives for it to do so.
China-sponsored talks between Pyongyang and a six-nation panel have been stalled since 2009, when the communist North pulled out of the negotiations. The North carried out its first underground nuclear test explosion three years before the talks broke down.
Washington has since said the six-party talks could not resume until Kim’s regime in Pyongyang would recommit itself to halting all nuclear tests and scrapping its nuclear development program. That policy was agreed to during the administration of former President Barack Obama, and Trump’s government has reaffirmed it.
Pyongyang has so far rejected Western overtures and continues to resist world leaders’ attempts to bring it into compliance with a string of United Nations resolutions.
VOA’s Brian Padden in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.
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