Turkey releases French journalist

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish authorities have released a French freelance journalist who was detained on charges of aiding a terror group, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported.

Loup Bureau was freed Friday, a day after French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian held talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other leaders in Ankara. Anadolu Agency said Bureau was ordered released from detention by a court in the Turkish town of Silopi, on the first hearing of his case. Bureau has been held since July 26, accused of aiding and assisting a terrorist organization for reporting on Kurds living near the Iraq border.

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

North Korea conducted its longest-ever test flight of a ballistic missile Friday, sending an intermediate-range weapon hurtling over U.S. ally Japan into the northern Pacific Ocean in a launch that signals both defiance of its rivals and a big technological advance.

Since U.S. President Donald Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury” in August, the North has conducted its most powerful nuclear test, threatened to send missiles into the waters around the U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam and launched two missiles of increasing range over Japan.

July saw its first tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles that could strike deep into the U.S. mainland when perfected.

The growing frequency, power and confidence displayed by these tests seem to confirm what governments and outside experts have long feared: North Korea is closer than ever to its goal of building a military arsenal that can viably target both U.S. troops in Asia and the U.S. homeland. This, in turn, is meant to allow North Korea greater military freedom in the region by raising doubts in Seoul and Tokyo that Washington would risk the annihilation of a U.S. city to protect its Asian allies.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the missile launch as a serious violation of Security Council resolutions coming less than two weeks after the North’s sixth nuclear test, which also violated a UN ban.

The Security Council scheduled an emergency closed-door meeting Friday afternoon in New York. On Monday, it unanimously approved its toughest sanctions yet on North Korea over its nuclear test.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the latest missile travelled about 3,700 kilometres and reached a maximum height of 770 kilometres. Guam, which is the home of important U.S. military assets, is 3,400 kilometres away from North Korea.

North Korea’s weapons tests demonstrate that it can “turn the American empire into a sea in flames through sudden surprise attack from any region and area,” North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper said Friday, without mentioning the latest missile test.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a liberal who initially pushed for talks with North Korea, said its tests currently make dialogue “impossible.”

“The sanctions and pressure by the international community will only tighten so that North Korea has no choice but to take the path for genuine dialogue” for nuclear disarmament, Moon said. “If North Korea provokes us or our allies, we have the strength to smash the attempt at an early stage and inflict a level of damage it would be impossible to recover from.”

North Korea has repeatedly vowed to continue its weapons tests amid what it calls U.S. hostility — by which it means the presence of nearly 80,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan and South Korea.

Robust international diplomacy on the issue has been stalled for years, and there’s so far little sign that senior officials from North Korea and the U.S. might sit down to discuss ways to slow the North’s determined march toward inclusion among the world’s nuclear weapons powers.

Friday’s test, which Seoul said was the 19th launch of a ballistic missile by North Korea this year, triggered sirens and warning messages in northern Japan but caused no apparent damage to aircraft or ships. It was the second missile fired over Japan in less than a month.

The missile was launched from Sunan, the location of Pyongyang’s international airport and the origin of the earlier missile that flew over Japan.