North Korea fires ballistic missile towards the sea amid escalating tensions

NORTH Korea has launched a ballistic missile towards its eastern waters, Japanese and South Korean officials said.

The launch, the North’s 14th round of weapons firing, comes days after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un vowed to bolster his nuclear arsenal “at the fastest possible pace” and threatened to use them against rivals.

It also came six days before a new conservative South Korean president takes office for a single five-year term.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement that the missile was fired from the North’s capital region and flew to the waters off its eastern coast.

It called North Korea’s repeated ballistic missile launches “an act of grave threat” to undermine international peace and security and a violation of UN Security Council resolutions banning any ballistic launch by the North.

The statement said that Won In-choul, the South Korean JCS chief, held a video conference about the launch with General Paul Lacamera, an American general who heads the South Korea-us combined forces command in Seoul, and they agreed to maintain a solid joint defence posture.

Japan also detected the launch and quickly condemned it.

“North Korea’s series of actions that threatens the peace, safety and stability of the international community are impermissible,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters during his visit to Rome.

Mr Kishida said he will discuss the launch when he meets Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi later.

Japanese vice defence minister Makoto Oniki said the missile was believed to have landed in waters outside the Japanese Exclusive Economic Zone. There has been no report of damage or injury reported from vessels and aircraft in the area.

It was not immediately known what missile North Korea launched. South Korea’s military said the missile flew about 290 miles, while

Mr Oniki said it travelled about 310 miles. Observers say North Korea’s unusually fast pace in weapons testing this year underscores its dual goal of advancing its missile programmes and applying pressure on Washington over a deepening freeze in nuclear negotiations.

They say Mr Kim eventually aims to use his expanded arsenal to win an international recognition of North Korea as a nuclear state that he believes would help force the United States to relax international economic sanctions on the North.