As Trump hosts Abe, word comes of North Korea missile

TOKYO — North Korea fired a ballistic missile Sunday morning, its first provocation since Donald Trump was elected president of the United States.

The missile was fired shortly before 8 a.m. local time from a known test site in North Pyongan province in the west of the country, not far from the border with China, and flew over the Korean Peninsula and into the Sea of Japan, South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said.

The launch happened while Trump was hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at his golf resort in Florida. In a brief joint appearance after the news of the missile test, the two presented a united front. Abe called the test “absolutely intolerable.” He said that in his summit with Trump at the White House on Friday the president “assured me the United States will always stand with Japan 100 percent.”

After Abe spoke, Trump, who had been standing behind him, took the microphone and said: “I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 percent.”

South Korea’s military leaders were still working to analyze data from the projectile but said it appeared to be a medium-range Musudan missile, the type that North Korea had been trying to perfect last year. The Musudan is technically capable of flying as far as 2,400 miles, putting Guam within range and almost reaching Alaska. But the joint chiefs said this missile appeared to fly only 300 miles.

“The military is determining if the missile is a modified Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile or the shorter range Rodong missile,” a military official told the South’s Yonhap News Agency.

But some analysts thought the launch could have been the first stages of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s regime has declared a goal of producing an intercontinental missile that can deliver a nuclear payload to the United States. Last year, the nation conducted two nuclear tests and dozens of missile tests.