Pyongyang [North Korea], March 16: On the morning of March 16, North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), marking the third launch of the week and at the time when South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol arrived in Tokyo to attend the South Korea-Japan leaders summit. .
"Our military detected a long-range ballistic missile fired from the Sunan area of Pyongyang," AFP quoted South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), adding that it was a missile . North Korean ICBM .
The Japanese government also confirmed the launch was aimed at the sea between Japan and the Korean peninsula .
Initially, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force estimated that the missile that fell into the sea after about an hour of travel was most likely an ICBM.
After that, the Japanese Ministry of Defense adjusted the calculation and said that the North Korean ICBM flew over a distance of 1,000 km at an altitude that allowed it to reach a range of more than 6,000 km in about 70 minutes before falling outside Japan's exclusive economic zone. , according to Reuters.
The announcement came at a time when President Yoon was on his way to Tokyo for his first meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and also the meeting between South Korea and Japan in more than a decade.
The purpose of this event is to overcome historical, political and economic controversies, and aim to promote better cooperation between the two countries to deal with North Korea and address other challenges.
As part of the effort, the two US allies agreed to share real-time tracking information about North Korean missile launches, as well as strengthen military cooperation between the two countries.
Source: ThanhNien Newspaper
