Pyongyang's missile launch is the latest in a series of test flights designed to provoke the US and its Asian allies. The North says it is testing in response to a planned deployment of a missile defense shield.
Image: picture alliance/Yonhap
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North Korea test fired a medium-range missile into the Sea of Japan on Wednesday, provoking a new round of condemnation from the United States and its allies.
The US State Department warned that the US is prepared to "defend ourselves and our allies from any attack or provocation."
The US - South Korean joint exercises are scheduled for later this month. The drills last year involved 30,000 US troops and 50,000 South Korean forces.
North Korea test fires two mid-range missiles
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North Korea appears to have launched a mid-range Rodong missile from its Western city of Unyul shortly before 8 am Wednesday (23:00 GMT/UTC Tuesday).
The missile flew about 620 miles (1,000 km) over the Korean peninsula and across much of the Sea of Japan, falling into Tokyo's exclusive economic zone some 250 km off its northern coast about 15 minutes after launch, according to Japan's defense minister, Gen Nakatani.
North Korea regularly condemns the joint US – South Korean military exercises as a "declaration of war."
Pyongyang has repeatedly warned of pre-emptive nuclear strikes against the South and US targets. And two weeks ago, Pyongyang launched three ballistic missiles that, according to the North, were simulated nuclear strikes on the South.
Defying the UN
The North tested a submarine-based missile last monthImage: picture-alliance/dpa/Kcna
A series of missile tests this year by North Korea are in defiance of tough UN sanctions. The communist country - likely the most isolated on earth - has vowed to take "physical action" against the planned deployment of a US missile defense system in South Korea.
In the past five years, North Korea is believed to have tested 16 Scud missiles with a range of up to 1,000 km, six Rodong missiles and six Musudan missiles with a range of up to 4,000 km, and three submarine-launched missiles, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
Pyongyang's ultimate goal is to be able to strike the US mainland.
The North says it is testing missiles in response to the planned deployment of a US missile defense system in the South. But Seoul says the defense system is in response to the North's ongoing missile tests.
The two allies have agreed to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system by the end of 2017.
Kim Jong-Un took power after his late father Kim Jong-Il died in 2011.
Multiple UN resolutions prohibit North Korea from developing ballistic missile technology.
bik/kl (AFP, AP, Reuters)
North Korea in pictures: a rare glimpse into the isolated country
A team of journalists explored North Korea for a week, accompanied by officials who monitored the images and ensured not a single citizen was interviewed. The secluded country opened up and revealed itself.
The reporters from AP covered over 2,150 kilometers (1,336 miles), in a country of barely 25,000 kilometers of roads, merely 724 of those paved. They came back with only their photos as evidence of the life in the northern part of the secluded country. In the picture: A woman walks along a road southeast of Pyongyang in North Korea's North Hwanghae province.
A North Korean man sits by a cooking fire he built to roast potatoes and chicken in the town of Samjiyon, in Ryanggang province. Possibly more than any other populated place on earth, North Korea is terra incognita, but the AP team was granted access to see North Korea and travel through places that, they were told, no foreign journalist and few foreigners had been allowed to see before.
A boulder lies on a path near the peak of Mount Paektu in North Korea's Ryanggang province. North Koreans venerate Mount Paektu for its natural beauty, but more importantly because it is considered the home of the North Korean revolution. They also consider the mountain sacred as the place of their ancestral origin.
Farmers walk in a rainstorm with their cattle near the town of Hyesan, North Korea in Ryanggang province. "To get out of Pyongyang, we weaved our way around buses, streetcars, the black sedans of party officials and fleets of colorful new taxis that have over the past few years become commonplace," says Eric Talmadge, one of the jourmalists who participated in the journey.
Young North Korean schoolchildren help to fix pot holes in a rural road in North Korea's North Hamgyong province. The country's best road is the 200-kilometer stretch of highway connecting the capital to the east coast port city of Wonsan. Beyond Wonsan, potholes, cracks or sudden patches of dirt road make travel a bumpy experience.
North Korean residents walk on along a river in the town of Kimchaek, in North Korea's North Hamgyong province. The once-productive cities along its east coast, like the coal mining town of Kilju and the nearby city of Kimchaek - built around a sprawling but now eerily quiet ironworks complex - have become a rust belt, gritty and relentlessly gray.
The remains of lunch left on a restaurant table in the city of Wonsan, North Korea. The government "minders" accompanied the journalists throughout the entire trip. Like foreign tourists, the AP team only saw a bare trace of the deprivation residents experience. Most of the country's citizens cannot afford proper housing, let alone a visit to a restaurant.
The journalists' itineary was dictated by North Korea's terms. There would be no stopping to interview random people. "It's quite possible none of them had ever seen an American before," said AP's Eric Talmadge, "but our presence went unacknowledged. No glances were exchanged. No words were spoken." Here boys are playing soccer in the town of Hyesan, in the northern Ryanggang province.
North Korean men share a picnic lunch and North Korean-brewed and bottled Taedonggang beer along the road in North Korea's North Hwanghae province. This year, according to United Nations experts, the country could come closer to feeding itself than it has in decades. But hunger remains a serious problem, with a third of North Korean children stunted in growth due to poor nutrition.
A farmer carries a fully grown cabbage after harvesting it from the main crop which will be harvested early November, on the outskirts of Pyongyang. About four-fifths of North Korea's land is too rugged to farm. Providing enough food to feed the nation is a struggle for North Korea, which suffered a near cataclysmic famine in the 1990s.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/Wong Maye-E
No detour allowed
A man works on his car as others sit next to the Wonsan Sea in North Korea. For the most part, AP's reporters were not allowed to detour from their pre-approved route, which, to no one's surprise, did not include nuclear facilities or prison camps.
A group of young North Koreans enjoys a picnic on the beach in Wonsan. "Even on the loneliest of lonely highways, we would never be without a 'minder,' whose job was to monitor and supervise our activities," Talmadge explains. "We were not to take photographs of any checkpoints or military installations."
North Korean people rest next to the railroad tracks in a town in North Korea's North Hamgyong province. "Though we would not get to know the people along the way, the country itself had a great deal to say. And it was opening up before us," Talmadge said upon his return. "We had been granted unprecedented access."
