SEOUL, Jan 30 (Reuters) – North Korea fired what appears to be a ballistic missile on Sunday, the South Korean and Japanese governments reported, in what would be Pyongyang’s seventh test this month.
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said a projectile suspected to be a ballistic missile was fired at 0752 local time (2252 GMT) off the east coast of North Korea.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in said North Korea was still moving away from honoring the moratorium on nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un convened a meeting of the powerful Politburo of the ruling Workers’ Party where the review of “self-initiated confidence-building measures” and immediate consideration “of the question of “a resumption of all temporarily suspended activities” was ordered.
North Korea has carried out missile tests since the beginning of the month, while Kim Jong-un called during his New Year greetings for a reinforcement of the country’s military capacities, citing the security context amid a stalemate in the discussions with the United States on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
(Report Cynthia Kim and Josh Smith Seoul, with Tim Kelly Tokyo; French version Camille Raynaud)