In a few days, the United States and South Korea will begin joint military maneuvers. North Korea has already announced an "unprecedented response". Now the country fires a long-range missile that lands in the sea.
North Korea has fired a suspected long-range missile into the Sea of Japan, according to the South Korean military. The military in Seoul said the missile was fired from North Korea's Sunan military base at around 5:22 p.m. local time (9:22 a.m. CET). According to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the missile "probably" landed in the country's exclusive economic zone, west of Japan's second-largest island of Hokkaido. It is Pyongyang's first weapons test this year.
The shooting down took place just days before a planned joint military exercise by South Korea and the United States. Only on Friday did North Korea threaten an "unprecedented" response to the planned military exercise in which the United States and South Korea say they want to practice their response to Pyongyang's use of nuclear weapons.
North Korea sharply condemns the regular military exercises of the two countries, and the Foreign Ministry in Pyongyang on Friday described the maneuvers planned for this year as "preparations for a war of aggression". After tensions on the Korean peninsula had recently increased drastically, the USA and South Korea announced at the end of January that they would expand their maneuvers.
North Korea's ruler Kim Jong Un declared in November that he wanted to make his country the "most powerful nuclear power in the world". Over the past year, North Korea has conducted an unprecedented number of weapons tests, including the November launch of its most advanced ICBM.
