North Korea fires long-range ballistic missile off its eastern coast

North Korea fired a long-range ballistic missile off its eastern coast this morning. The launch took place hours before the leaders of South Korea and Japan were to meet at a Tokyo summit. The summit  expected to be overshadowed by North Korean nuclear threats. Seoul said that it had detected the launch from the Sunan area in Pyongyang.

 

Meanwhile, Japan's defence ministry said, the ICBM-type projectile appeared to have flown higher than 6,000 km for about 70 minutes.



The ministry said, it most likely landed outside Japan's exclusive economic zones, 200 km west of Oshima-Oshima Island in Hokkaido, northern Japan.

 

The latest launch also came amid the ongoing South Korea-US Freedom Shield exercise, which the North has decried as preparations for a war of aggression against it. Earlier, on Tuesday, North Korea also fired two strategic cruise missiles from a submarine in waters off its east coast.