N. Korea missile test first of Trump era

President, visiting Japanese leader vow mutual support.

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — North Korea launched a ballistic missile toward the sea off its eastern coast early today in what South Korea called the North’s first attempt to test since the inauguration of President Donald Trump.

Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is visiting Trump at his Mar-aLago resort in Florida this weekend, held a brief press conference to pledge their mutual support against North Korea, which has missiles capable of striking the island nation.

“I just want everyone to understand and fully know that the United States stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 percent,” Trump said.

Abe called the missile launch “absolutely intolerable” and called on North Korea to “fully comply with the relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions” that bar it from developing or testing ballistic missile and nuclear weapons technologies.

The projectile took off at 7:55 a.m. local time from Banghyon, near North Korea’s northwestern border with China, and flew 310 miles before falling in the sea, South Korea said in a statement. The South did not provide further information, saying South Korean and U.S. authorities were still analyzing data.

South Korea condemned the launching, saying, like Abe, that it violated the Security Council resolutions. It also said the North had launched the missile to raise tension over its weapons programs and to use it as leverage in dealing with the Trump administration.

“We see this as part of an attempt by the North to grab attention by demonstrating its nuclear and missile capabilities and to counter the new United States administration’s strong policy line against North Korea,” the South Korean military said in its statement.

Pentagon officials said they were still assessing whether the missile was an intercontinental-range system or a shorter-range missile. One U.S. official, who asked not to be identified because he was discussing preliminary intelligence information, said the initial indication was that it was a shorter-range system.

The test of an intercontinental-range system would be especially provocative because it would mean North Korea was trying to develop the ability to strike the United States.

Though the missile launched today appeared not to have been an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, South Korean officials said they believed that the North had been using the Musudan, its intermediate-range missile, to develop and test some ICBM technologies.

North Korea has deployed and often tested short-range Scud and midrange Rodong ballistic missiles that can reach most of South Korea and Japan, but it has had a spotty record in test-launching the Musudan, its only missile with sufficient range to reach U.S. military bases in the Pacific, including those on Guam. North Korea’s last Musudan test ended in failure in October.

In a New Year’s Day speech, Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s leader, said his country had reached a “final stage” in preparing for its first test of an ICBM.