North Korea launches ballistic missile off its east coast, South Korea says

North Korea launched a ballistic missile off its east coast on Monday, the South Korean military said, a day after the North pledged to take “offensive and overwhelming countermeasures” in response to a new American military exercise with South Korea and Japan.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the launch took place Monday morning, but gave no other details, including how far the weapon traveled.

The launch came two days after South Korea, the United States and Japan ended their new multi-domain trilateral exercises. The “Freedom Edge” exercise attracted a US aircraft carrier and destroyers, fighter jets and helicopters from the three countries, and the latter practiced anti-missile defense, anti-submarine warfare and anti-submarine warfare exercises. maritime ban.

On Sunday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry issued a lengthy statement strongly denouncing the United States, South Korea and Japan for their three-way exercise. He called the exercise an Asian version of NATO revealing the United States' intention to escalate regional military tensions, put pressure on Russia and lay siege to China.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry said it would “firmly defend state sovereignty, security and interests as well as regional peace through aggressive and overwhelming countermeasures.”

Monday's shooting was the North's first weapons firing in five days. Last Wednesday, North Korea launched what it called a multi-warhead missile in the first known launch of an advanced developmental weapon intended to defeat U.S. and South Korean missile defenses. North Korea said the launch was a success, but South Korea rejected the claim, calling it a deception intended to cover up a failed launch.

In recent weeks, North Korea has launched numerous balloons carrying trash toward South Korea in what it has described as a tit-for-tat response to South Korean activists sending political leaflets via their own balloons.