North Korea launched a new short-range ballistic missile, similar to a Scud, on Monday morning, and it flew about 280 miles to land inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

This launch is North Korea’s third in three weeks and its 12th this year, underscoring Kim Jong Un’s determination to advance his regime’s technical capabilities and his continued defiance of the international community.

“The firing of the ballistic missile of this time is extremely problematic in terms of safety of aircraft and ships,” Yoshihide Suga, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, told reporters in an emergency news conference. “It also clearly violates resolutions adopted by the United Nations Security Council.”

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, returning from a Group of Seven meeting in Italy, said that Japan will work with the United States to deter North Korea. The White House said President Trump had been briefed on the latest missile launch, which coincided with the Memorial Day holiday weekend in the United States.

The missile was launched shortly after 5 a.m. local time from an airfield near Wonsan, on North Korea’s east coast, according to the U.S. Pacific Command and South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff.

(Reuters)

[ After North Korea fires another missile, Kim Jong Un approves it for ‘action’ ]

“The missile was tracked for six minutes until it landed in the Sea of Japan,” Pacific Command said in a statement, adding that it was working to assess the missile. “We continue to monitor North Korea’s actions closely.”



Moon Jae-in, South Korea’s new president, ordered an emergency national security council meeting to discuss the latest launch, and his joint chiefs said that the South Korean military was “maintaining full preparedness.”

Before the latest launch, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said that war with North Korea would “probably be the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetimes.”

North Korea was threatening the United States with its nuclear weapons, but its conventional weapons could cause huge devastation in South Korea, where half the population lives in the Seoul area, within firing range of North Korean artillery.

“The bottom line is it would be a catastrophic war if this turns into a combat if we’re not able to resolve this situation through diplomatic means,” Mattis told CBS News’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

[ Here are the missiles North Korea just showed off, one by one ]

Kim has been pushing ahead with his weapons program at a rate that has alarmed analysts and policymakers, ordering the launches of a variety of rockets that appear to be part of his ambition to obtain an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

He has overseen the launch of 78 missiles since he took power 5½ years ago, compared with the 16 missiles fired during the 17 years that his father, Kim Jong Il, was at the helm.

Although the missiles sometimes explode shortly after launch, the North Koreans have had a surprisingly good success rate, said Shea Cotton, an expert at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation in California. Of the 78 missiles launched under Kim Jong Un, 61 have succeeded, giving him a 78 percent success rate, Cotton said.

Read more:

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Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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