North Korea conducts ballistic missile tests

North Korea on Saturday fired a ballistic missile into the sea in an effort to test weapons, The Associated Press reports.

The launch was detected by the South Korean military, and the country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the missile flew about 270 kilometers (168 miles) at a maximum altitude of 560 kilometers (348 miles) and landed in the sea between Korea and Japan.

The missile was fired from a location in the Sunan area, near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.

U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials are analyzing the launch, according to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The missile test was North Korea’s ninth round of launches in 2022, following a slew of launches in January.

North Korean officials said in late January that it might resume nuclear tests due to what it described as the hostility of the U.S.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s Workers’ Party of Korea accused the U.S. of “recklessly faulting for no reason the DPRK’s legitimate exercise of sovereignty.”

North Korea’s latest launch occurred Sunday and also originated in the Sunan area.

Sunday’s launch was to test a camera system North Korea wants to install on a spy satellite, according to North Korea.

Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi called the launch “absolutely unacceptable.”

“The missile was fired just as the international community is responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while also in the middle of the Beijing Paralympics,” Kishi said.