PYONGYANG: North Korea launched a ballistic missile from a submarine early on Wednesday morning, with Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, accusing Pyongyang of carrying out an "unforgivable act" that posed threat to regional stability.
The missile, fired shortly after 5:30 am local time from off the North Korean coastal city of Sinpo, flew a distance of around 500 km and entered Japan's air defence identification zone before falling into the Sea of Japan.
"It is the first time that an SLBM has fallen inside Japan's air defence identification zone", Mr Abe told reporters in Tokyo. "It is a grave threat to Japan's security and an unforgivable threat to regional stability and peace".
He added that the launch clearly contravened resolutions by the United Nations Security Council that ban North Korea from carrying out tests of ballistic missile technology. Japan has lodged a formal protest with Pyongyang.
The launch provoked anger elsewhere in the region, with the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, expressing his "opposition" to the launch, while the South Korean presidential office called an emergency meeting of the National Security Council.
The US Strategic Command issued a statement in which it said the launch posed no threat to North America, but added that US forces "remain vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations".
The launch of the missile, which the US Strategic Command believes was a nuclear-capable KN-11 Nodong-D, came less than 48 hours after Pyongyang threatened to carry out a "pre-emptive nuclear strike" unless South Korea and the US cancelled joint military exercises.
The annual two-week Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills began on Monday, with 25,000 US troops and 50,000 South Korean personnel rehearsing reactions to a number of scenarios, including repelling a North Korean invasion.
It may also have been designed to deflect attention away from the recent defection of a high-ranking diplomat from North Korea's embassy in London.
"The SLBM, which flew about 500 km, can be evaluated as a success", Moon Keun-sik, an analyst at the Korea Defence and Security Forum, told . "The North could seek to develop a large submarine capable of carrying 12 SLBMs".
