N Korea fires four missiles

‘NEW STAGE’ OF THREAT: INTOLERABLE PROVOCATION, SAYS JAPAN AS US WARNS PYONGYANG

Rockets that fell within 200km of Japan violates UN conditions, says Abe.

Seoul

Nuclear-armed North Korea launched four ballistic missiles yesterday in another challenge to President Donald Trump, with three landing provocatively close to America’s ally Japan.

Seoul and Washington began annual joint military exercises last week, which habitually infuriate Pyongyang, with the North’s military warning of “merciless nuclear counter-action”.

Under leader Kim Jong-Un, Pyongyang has ambitions to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the US mainland – which Trump has vowed will not happen.

Seoul said four missiles had been fired from Tongchang county, North Pyongan province, into the East Sea (Sea of Japan).

The missiles travelled about 1 000km and reached an altitude of 260km, said a spokesperson for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, adding they were unlikely to be ICBMs.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said three of the North Korean missiles came down in Tokyo’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) – waters extending 200km from its coast.

“This clearly shows North Korea has entered a new stage of threat,” Abe told parliament.

The North’s repeated launches “clearly violate United Nations (UN) Security Council resolutions”, he said. “We can never tolerate this.”

Tokyo’s chief government spokesperson, Yoshihide Suga, added that Japan was considering calling for an emergency UN Security Council meeting.

In Washington, the State Department strongly condemned the launches, saying the US was ready to “use the full range of capabilities at our disposal against this growing threat” – in the words of acting spokesperson Mark Toner’s statement. – AFP