
North Korea appeared to have launched a missile on Friday, just hours after criticizing US efforts to impose new sanctions on it over recent missile launches as “provocations” and threatening a harsh response.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that North Korea launched an unidentified projectile. Coast Guard of Japan also said that North fired what could be a ballistic missile.
State media reported earlier on Friday that North Korea claimed its missile tests were a legitimate exercise of self-defense and that the US was deliberately escalating the situation by imposing new sanctions.
North Korea’s recent development of a new-type weapon is part of its modernization of its national defense capability, the foreign ministry said in a statement published by the state news agency KCNA. It does not target any specific country or threat neighbouring countries, it said.