N. Korea fires ballistic missile

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea fired one ballistic missile from Pyongsong, a city in the South Pyongan Province, over the sea between South Korea and Japan at around 18:17 GMT, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Wednesday.

South Korea and the United States are currently analyzing the type of missile that North Korea fired, the military said in a text.

Minutes after North Korea fired the missile, South Korea’s military conducted a missile-firing test in response to the provocation, the South Korean military added.

The missile flew to the east and the South Korean military is researching details of the launch with the United States, according to a report from South Korean news agency Yonhap, citing South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Japan’s national public broadcaster NHK reported, citing the defense ministry, that the missile may have landed in the water of Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

The US source told Reuters that no further details were immediately available. Newspaper Asahi Shimbun in Japan also reported that North Korea had fired a ballistic missile early on Wednesday.

US stocks pared gains after reports of the missile launch. The S&P 500 index was up half a percent in mid-afternoon.

Two authoritative US government sources said earlier that US government experts believed North Korea could conduct a new missile test within days, in what would be its first launch since it fired a missile over Japan in mid-September.

The US officials declined to say what type of missile they thought North Korea might test, but noted that Pyongyang had been working to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States and had already tested inter-continental ballistic missiles.

After firing missiles at a rate of about two or three per month since April, North Korea paused its missile launches in late September, after it fired a missile that passed over Japan’s northern Hokkaido Island on September 15.

Last week, North Korea denounced Trump’s decision to re-list it as a state sponsor of terrorism, calling it a “serious provocation and violent infringement.”

The designation allows the United States to impose more sanctions, though some experts said it risked inflaming tensions.

Trump has traded insults and threats with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and warned in his maiden speech to the United Nations in September that the United States would have no choice but to “totally destroy” North Korea if forced to defend itself or its allies.

Washington has said repeatedly that all options are on the table in dealing with North Korea, including military ones, but that it prefers a peaceful solution by Pyongyang agreeing to give up its nuclear and missile programs.

To this end, Trump has pursued a policy of encouraging countries around the world, including North Korea’s main ally and neighbor, China, to step up sanctions on Pyongyang to persuade it to give up its weapons programs.

North Korea has given no indication it is willing to re-enter dialog on those terms.

North Korea defends its weapons programs as a necessary defense against US plans to invade. The United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea as a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, denies any such intention.