SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched a missile on Sunday, the first test since a new president took office in South Korea last week and called for dialogue with the North. ADVERTISING SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched a missile on Sunday, the first test since a new president took office in South Korea last week and called for dialogue with the North.
North Korea fired the missile from the northwestern city of Kusong, the South Korean military said in a statement. Data was still being analyzed to determine what type of missile was used and whether the test was successful, according to the statement. The Associated Press reported the missile flew about 435 miles.
This was the North’s first missile test since a launch April 29 that was considered a failure, with the unidentified projectile exploding a few minutes after liftoff.
Under U.N. Security Council resolutions, the country is banned from developing or testing ballistic missiles.
In South Korea, President Moon Jae-in ordered an urgent meeting of top security officials.
Moon won the presidential election Tuesday, bringing South Korean liberals back to power. They favor dialogue with North Korea, saying that sanctions alone have not stopped its nuclear and missile threats.
Since taking office Wednesday, Moon has said he was willing to visit North Korea. But he also warned that if the North continued military provocations, it would be difficult to restart dialogue on the divided Korean Peninsula.
North Korea has a history of raising tensions to strengthen its leverage when its foes have proposed negotiations.
In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga of Japan said Sunday that North Korea’s firing of a ballistic missile was a violation of the U.N. resolutions and that Japan strongly protested the action, Reuters reported. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe repeated the protest in comments to reporters.
The test Sunday came one day after a senior North Korean diplomat said her government would be willing to meet with the Trump administration for negotiations “if the conditions are set.”
Choi Sun-hee, the top North Korean diplomat who handles relations with Washington, did not elaborate on what the North’s conditions were, but some former U.S. officials and analysts have been considering the possibility of North Korea and the United States returning to negotiations for the first time since 2008.
