Yonhap news agency reported on Monday that North Korea had fired off what appears to be a ballistic missile, the outlet cited the South’s military. Seoul’s joint chief of staff said that the unidentified missile was fired from near the North Korean coastal city of Wonsan.
The alarming news comes as US President Donald Trump seeks tougher sanctions against North Korea, which is on a quest to develop a missile capable of reaching the continental United States.
Yonhap reported that South Korea’s new president, Moon Jae-In, has ordered a meeting of the national security council to assess the launch.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un supervised the test of a new anti-aircraft weapon system and has ordered its mass production and deployment throughout the country. The exact nature of the weapon or the time of the test was not reported by the state’s news agency KCNA.
The agency is also believed to be developing missiles and nuclear weapons. North Korea has been pushing to develop a wide range of weapon systems since early last year at an unprecedented pace including a long-range missile capable of striking the mainland US.
Recent weeks have seen North test its intermediate-range ballistic missile, making some technical advances. North Korea rejects UN and unilateral sanctions by other states against its weapons program as an infringement of its right to self-defence and says the program is necessary to counter US aggression.
KCNA released a statement on Sunday indicating that Kim Jong Un, watched the test of a new type of anti-aircraft guided weapon system organized by the Academy of National Defence Science. Kim Jong Un said that the weapon system, whose operation capability has been thoroughly verified, should be mass-produced to deploy all over the country.
