The South Korean military said it is analyzing the launch with the United States and has strengthened its monitoring and preparation in case of further actions from North Korea. Analysts speculate the North may have tested a new intermediate-range missile that Pyongyang recently threatened to fire toward the U.S. territory of Guam, which hosts a major military base. This missile landed nowhere near Guam, which is about 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) south of Tokyo, but the length of Tuesday\u2019s launch may have been designed for the North to show it could follow through on its threat. Seoul says the missile was launched from Sunan, which is where Pyongyang\u2019s international airport is, opening the possibility that North Korea launched a road-mobile missile from an airport runway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was North Korea\u2019s 13th launch of ballistic missiles this year, said Roh Jae-cheon, spokesman of Seoul\u2019s JCS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n North Korea will no doubt be watching the world\u2019s reaction to see if it can use Tuesday\u2019s flight over Japan as a precedent for future launches. Japanese officials said there was no damage to ships or anything else reported. Japan\u2019s NHK TV said the missile separated into three parts. \u201cWe will do our utmost to protect people\u2019s lives,\u201d Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters. \u201cThis reckless act of launching a missile that flies over our country is an unprecedented, serious and important threat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tuesday\u2019s launch comes days after the North fired what was assessed as three short-range ballistic missiles into the sea and a month after its second flight test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, which analysts say could reach deep into the U.S. mainland when perfected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n South Korea\u2019s Foreign Ministry warned that the North will face a \u201cstrong response\u201d from the U.S.-South Korean alliance if what it called nuclear and missile provocations continue. The ministry also urged Pyongyang to accept talks over its nuclear program and acknowledge that abandoning its nuclear ambitions is the only way to guarantee its security and economic development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n South Korea also said its air force also conducted a live-fire drill involving four F-15 fighters dropping eight MK-84 bombs that accurately hit targets at a military field near the country\u2019s eastern coast. Park Su-hyun, spokesman of South Korean President Moon Jae-in, said the exercise was conducted after Moon directed the military to \u201cdisplay a strong capability to punish\u201d the North.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Park also said Moon\u2019s national security director Chung Eui-yong and Seoul\u2019s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-hwa called Trump\u2019s national security adviser H.R. McMaster and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, respectively, to discuss the launch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The launch over Japan isn\u2019t a total surprise. Earlier this month, when threatening to lob four Hwasong-12s, which are new intermediate-range missiles, into the waters near Guam, North Korea specifically said they would fly over Japanese territory. North Korea in June also angrily reacted to the launch of a Japanese satellite it said was aimed at spying on the North and said Tokyo was no longer entitled to fault Pyongyang \u201cno matter what it launches or whether that crosses the sky above Japan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n North Korea typically reacts with anger to U.S.-South Korean military drills, which are happening now, often testing weapons and threatening Seoul and Washington in its state-controlled media. But animosity is higher than usual following threats by Trump to unleash \u201cfire and fury\u201d on the North, and Pyongyang\u2019s stated plan to consider firing some of its missiles near Guam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kim Dong-yub, a former South Korean military official who is now an analyst at Seoul\u2019s Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said the early flight data suggests the North Korean missile was likely a Hwasong-12. Other possibilities, he said, include a midrange Musudan, a missile with a potential 3,500-kilometer (2,180-mile) range that puts much of the Asia-Pacific region within reach, or a Pukguksong-2, a solid-fuel missile that can be fired faster and more secretly than weapons using liquid fuel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n South Korea\u2019s military didn\u2019t immediately confirm whether the North Korean missile was fired from Pyongyang\u2019s airport. Moon Seong Mook, a former South Korean military official and current analyst for the Seoul-based Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, said the airport\u2019s runways could provide the ideal space to launch a road-mobile missile like the Hwasong-12. By launching from its capital, the North might have been trying to demonstrate the ability to launch its missiles from anywhere, Moon said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe launch doubled as a threat to Washington, not only because of the U.S. military bases in Japan, but also that the North showed it has the real capability to fire missiles to waters near Guam if it chose to shoot them in that direction,\u201d Moon said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n North Korea first fired a rocket over Japanese territory in August of 1998 when a multistage rocket that outside experts called \u201cTaepodong-1\u2033 flew about 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) before landing in the Pacific Ocean. The North later said it launched a satellite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n North Korea flew another rocket over Japan again in April 2009 and said that, too, was carrying a satellite. The North claimed success, but the U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command says no satellite reached orbit. The United Nations has repeatedly condemned North Korean satellite launches as covers meant to test banned long-range missile technology. Some parts of a space launch vehicle reportedly flew over Okinawa last year after separating from the rocket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pyongyang regularly claims the U.S.-South Korean military exercises are an invasion rehearsal, although analysts say the North\u2019s anger is partly because the impoverished country must react with its own expensive drills and weapons tests. The allies say the war games are defensive and meant to counter North Korean aggression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n North Korea\u2019s U.N. ambassador, Ja Song Nam, wrote recently that the exercises are \u201cprovocative and aggressive\u201d at a time when the Korean Peninsula is \u201clike a time bomb.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Associated Press journalist Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" North Korea fired a ballistic missile from its capital Pyongyang that flew over Japan before plunging into the northern Pacific Ocean, officials said Tuesday, an aggressive test-flight over the territory of a close U.S. ally that sends a clear message of defiance as Washington and Seoul conduct war games nearby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":66028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":8,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[100,8,12,25],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2431,845],"class_list":["post-32281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-news","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"Q4CTUGBOPRGEHMG5V6QUERBAVM","arc_canonical_url":"\/flashpoints\/2017\/08\/28\/south-korea-says-north-fires-ballistic-missile-over-japan\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP17240840457970.jpg.jpg\")
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