North Korea has fired another missile in a fury over fresh sanctions imposed by Joe Biden for continuing its weapons tests.
South Korean officials said the projectile was fired towards the east but did not immediately say where it landed.
It would be Kim Jong-un’s third test in two weeks, just hours after criticising a US push for new sanctions over previous launches.
Japan’s Prime Minister’s Office and the Defense Ministry also said they detected the North Korean launch and said it was possibly a ballistic missile.
The Japanese coast guard issued a safety advisory, saying an object had possibly landed already.
On Wednesday the US imposed sanctions on five North Koreans over their roles in obtaining equipment and technology for the secretive county’s missile programs.
Joe Biden’s administration said it would seek new UN sanctions against the hermit kingdom.
The announcement came just hours after North Korea said leader Kim Jong-un oversaw a successful test of a hypersonic missile on Tuesday.
He claimed the launch would greatly increase the country’s nuclear ‘war deterrent’ in a move that sent tensions in the region soaring.
Tuesday’s test was North Korea’s second demonstration of its purported hypersonic missile in a week.
In recent months, the country has been ramping up tests of new, potentially nuclear-capable missiles designed to overwhelm missile defence systems in the region.
The totalitarian state continues to expand its military capabilities amid a freeze in diplomacy with the United States.
In a statement carried by North Korea’s official news agency, an unidentified Foreign Ministry spokesperson defended launches as a righteous exercise of self-defense.
The spokesperson said the new sanctions underscore hostile US intent aimed at ‘isolating and stifling’ North Korea – formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
It comes despite Washington’s repeated calls for Pyongyang to resume diplomacy, which has stalled over disagreements about sanctions relief and nuclear disarmament steps.
The spokesperson accused the United States of maintaining a ‘gangster-like’ stance, saying that the North’s development of the new missile is part of its efforts to modernise its military and does not target any specific country or threaten the security of its neighbours.
‘Nevertheless, the US is intentionally escalating the situation even with the activation of independent sanctions, not content with referring the DPRK’s just activity to the UN Security Council,’ the spokesperson said.
‘This shows that though the present US administration is trumpeting about diplomacy and dialogue, it is still engrossed in its policy for isolating and stifling the DPRK.
‘If the U.S. adopts such a confrontational stance, the DPRK will be forced to take stronger and certain reaction to it.’
Hypersonic weapons, which fly at five times the speed of sound, could pose a crucial challenge to missile defence systems because of their speed and manoeuvrability.
Such weapons were on a wish-list of sophisticated military assets Kim unveiled early last year along with multi-warhead missiles, spy satellites, solid-fuel long-range missiles and submarine-launched nuclear missiles.
Still, experts say North Korea would need years and more successful and longer-range tests before acquiring a credible hypersonic system.
The Biden administration has said it’s willing to resume talks with North Korea at any time without preconditions.
But Pyongyang has so far rejected the idea of open-ended talks, saying the US must first withdraw its ‘hostile policy’ – a term the regime mainly uses to describe sanctions and joint US-South Korea military drills.
In an interview with MSNBC, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the North’s latest tests ‘profoundly destabilising’ and said the United States was deeply engaged at the UN and with key partners, including allies South Korea and Japan, on a response.
‘I think some of this is North Korea trying to get attention. It’s done that in the past. It’ll probably continue to do that,’ he said.
‘But we are very focused with allies and partners in making sure that they and we are properly defended and that there are repercussions, consequences for these actions by North Korea.’
A US-led diplomatic push aimed at convincing North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program collapsed in 2019 after the Trump administration rejected the North’s demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities.
Kim Jong-un has since pledged to further expand a nuclear arsenal he clearly sees as his strongest guarantee of survival, despite the country’s economy suffering major setbacks amid pandemic-related border closures and persistent US-led sanctions.
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