North Korea fires missile into Sea of Japan
Seoul : Nuclear-armed North Korea fired a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan on Wednesday, in what analysts said was a warning ahead of a China-US summit at which Pyongyang's accelerating atomic weapons programme is set to top the agenda.
South Korea's defence ministry said the missile -– launched days after Pyongyang warned of retaliation if the global community ramps up sanctions -- had flown 60 kilometres (about 40 miles).
The incident represented a "threat to the peace and stability of the whole world", Seoul said, while Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe labelled it a "grave provocation".
In a terse statement, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said: "The United States has spoken enough about North Korea. We have no further comment."
The launch -- a KN-15 medium-range ballistic missile -- will fuel international concerns about the hermit state's weapons programme.
Pyongyang is on a quest to develop a long-range missile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead, and has so far staged five nuclear tests, two of them last year.
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