SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea said North Korea fired a ballistic missile toward the sea but the launch likely failed Wednesday night, hours after Seoul said it would resume front-line aerial surveillance in response to the North’s spy satellite launch.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a brief statement early Thursday it detected the missile launch from the North’s capital region. It said the missile was fired toward the North’s eastern waters but that the launch was believed to have ended in failure. It gave no further details such as what type of missile was fired and what happened to it.
The launch was North Korea’s first known weapons firing in more than two months. Earlier Wednesday, South Korea announced it decided to partially suspend an inter-Korean agreement and restart front-line aerial surveillance of North Korea in reaction to the North’s satellite launch the previous night.
South Korea, the U.S. and Japan have strongly condemned the North’s satellite launch because they believe it was meant to improve the country’s missile technology as well as establish a space-based surveillance system. U.N. Security Council resolutions prohibit any satellite liftoffs by North Korea, viewing them as covers for testing its long-range missile technology.
The North’s neighbors are trying to confirm whether its satellite launch was successful as it claimed and whether the satellite can perform reconnaissance functions.
South Korea’s military said it assessed that the satellite had entered orbit. But it said it needs more time to verify whether it works. Earlier, the Pentagon said it was assessing the success of the launch, while Japan said there had been no confirmation of the North’s report on the satellite entering orbit.
North Korea’s space agency said its Malligyong-1 satellite was placed in orbit on Tuesday night, about 12 minutes after liftoff. Leader Kim Jong Un watched the satellite launch on site.