SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea fired a ballistic missile on Friday towards the sea off its east coast, South Korea and Japan said, following missile launches in the past two weeks and after U.S. President Donald Trump‘s renewed invitation for talks with Pyongyang.
South Korea‘s military said the suspected short-range ballistic missile was launched from an area in North Korea’s northwest region near the Chinese border, travelling a distance of about 700 km (435 miles).
South Korean and U.S. surveillance systems detected preparations for the launch and tracked the projectile in flight, the military said. The information was shared with Japan, it said.
The Japanese government also said North Korea had fired what could be a ballistic missile, which it said likely fell outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said there was no confirmed report of damage.
While visiting South Korea last week, Trump repeated his willingness to sit down with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, raising expectations that the two could come to a last-minute agreement to meet.
No meeting took place, but Trump said he was willing to return to the region to meet Kim.
Trump met Kim at the Panmunjom truce village on the inter-Korea military border in 2019 during the U.S. president’s first term when he was visiting the region.
Kim has not responded to Trump’s latest overtures but has previously said he had “fond memories” of meeting the U.S. president and there was no reason to avoid talks if Washington stopped insisting his country give up its nuclear weapons.
On Thursday, the North’s foreign ministry said the Trump administration was “antagonizing” it by imposing sanctions on its officials and institutions over allegations of money laundering and vowed to respond, without elaborating.
Earlier this week, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during a visit reaffirmed U.S. commitment to the security alliance with South Korea. He said the focus of the U.S. military stationed there remained on deterring Pyongyang despite the vision of more “flexibility” for its military against regional threats.
North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles, including what it said was a hypersonic missile, and sea-to-surface cruise missiles last month ahead of the visit by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to South Korea during a regional summit.
(Reporting by Jack Kim and Joyce Lee in Seoul and Anton Bridge in Tokyo; Editing by Kim Coghill, Ed Davies and Lincoln Feast.)
