North Korea fired a ballistic missile toward the sea off its east coast on Friday, South Korean and Japanese officials reported. This follows North Korea’s previous missile and artillery tests in October, conducted ahead of South Korea’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, United States President Donald Trump’s visit, and a visit by United States Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to the demilitarized zone.
North Korea’s missile alarms South Korea and Japan
According to the South Korean military, Pyongyang launched at least one unidentified missile toward the East Sea, while Japan confirmed that the missile likely fell outside its exclusive economic zone, causing no damage to aircraft or ships. South Korea’s military added that the unidentified missile was launched from an area in North Korea’s northwest region near the Chinese border. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told reporters that the missile apparently fell outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, with no damage to planes or ships reported, Kyodo news agency reported.
Notably, North Korea had also fired multiple artillery rockets less than an hour prior to the visit by Hegseth to the Demilitarized Zone, separating both the Koreas on November 3. South Korean media Yonhap had cited its Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) as saying that Pyongyang launched the rockets toward waters off the northern part of Yellow Sea also known as West Sea at around 4 pm on November 3 and that analysis of the weapons is being done.
Meanwhile, Pyongyang has asserted to take action to counter sanctions imposed on Tuesday by the Trump’s administration. The US Treasury Department had imposed sanctions on eight North Korean individuals and two entities for their role in laundering funds stolen through illicit cyber activities. The department noted that the individuals were “state-sponsored hackers,” whose illicit operations were conducted “to fund the regime’s nuclear weapons programme.”
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