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SEOUL — North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast on Thursday, in its first significant provocation against the United States under President Biden, United States and Japanese officials said.
South Korea confirmed North Korea had launched two unidentified projectiles, but Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan was the first regional leader to identify them as “ballistic missiles.” A senior United States official also confirmed that the projectiles were ballistic missiles.
“It threatens the peace and security of Japan and the region, and is a violation of United Nations resolutions,” the Japanese leader said on Twitter, referring to the United Nations Security Council’s ban on the North’s developing and testing ballistic missile technologies. “I strongly protest and strongly condemn it.”
The missiles dropped into waters between North Korea and Japan and outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, Mr. Suga said. The Japanese military said that the missiles flew 280 miles, reaching a height of 62 miles.
In Tokyo and Seoul, the governments convened their National Security Councils to discuss North Korea’s latest weapons test.
South Korean authorities were analyzing the data collected from the launch to determine the type of projectile, the country’s military said in a brief statement. The South Korean military uses the term “unidentified projectile” when it cannot immediately determine if the object was a ballistic missile.
Over the weekend, North Korea also test-fired two short-range cruise missiles, South Korean defense officials confirmed on Wednesday. But that test did not violate United Nations resolutions, which ban North Korea from developing or testing ballistic missile technologies.
The earlier test took place off the west coast of North Korea on Sunday, just days after the country had accused the United States and South Korea of raising “a stink” on the Korean Peninsula with their annual military drills.
North Korea’s weapons program has been a thorny problem for the past four U.S. presidents. Each approached the country with different incentives and sanctions, but all failed to persuade it to stop building nuclear warheads and the missiles to deliver them.
Makiko Inoue contributed reporting from Tokyo, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.
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