SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The Latest on North Korea’s firing of a projectile over Japan (all times local):
2 p.m.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he had a 40-minute phone chat with President Donald Trump in which they analyzed North Korea’s latest missile launch and what action to take.
Abe said in a statement, “Japan’s and the U.S. positions are totally at one.”
Both nations were in “total agreement” that an emergency meeting was needed at the U.N. Security Council to step up pressures on North Korea after what he called an unprecedented threat
Abe also said “President Trump expressed his strong commitment to defending Japan, saying he was 100 percent with Japan as an ally.”
Abe reiterated he believes that stepping up pressure on North Korea is needed.
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12:30 p.m.
Indonesia, one of the few nations to have decades of cordial relations with North Korea, has condemned its launch of a missile that flew over Japan. The Philippines, this year’s chairman of meetings of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, has also expressed grave concern, urging Pyongyang to halt such provocative actions.
Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says the missile test is inconsistent with North Korea’s international obligations. It urged North Korea to abide by U.N. resolutions condemning its ballistic missile launches and nuclear weapons development.
“Stability on the Korean peninsula is very important,” the ministry says.
Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter S. Cayetano called on North Korea to halt provocative actions.
Cayetano said ASEAN and the Philippines as its chair this year remain committed to peaceful resolution of conflict but that “provocations such as this latest missile launch should stop to help us put in place an environment that would be conducive to dialogue.”
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11:45 a.m.
South Korea has released footage of its own missile tests it says were conducted last week in a response to the latest North Korean missile launch.
The South Korean military said Tuesday it conducted three flight tests of two types of new missiles with ranges of 800 kilometers (497 miles) and 500 kilometers (310 miles) on Aug. 24 and that the missiles were close to being operationally deployed.
The military released footage of the tests of the longer-range missile that showed the missile being fired from a truck-mounted launcher and hitting a land-based target.
South Korea hasn’t officially named the missile yet, but it is tentatively called the Hyunmoo-2C.
The missile is considered a key component to the so-called “kill chain” pre-emptive strike capability the South is pursuing to cope with the North’s growing nuclear and missile threat.
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10:50 a.m.
Residents on the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido were warned of a North Korean missile launch by a “J-Alert” on their cellphones, with loud alarms and an email that told people to stay indoors.
The system also is designed to kick in an automated voice repeating the warnings on area loudspeakers.
Hironori Matsuura, an official in the coastal town of Erimo, said the phone alarm worked but not the 50 speakers in the town.
Matsuura said people were stunned as this is the first time a North Korea missile is believed to have flown over Hokkaido. The town, which has about 4,800 residents, is checking on what went wrong with the speaker system.
“We all woke up,” he said. “But there are no reports of any damage, and no one had to evacuate.”
Hokkaido prefectural official Hirofumi Tsujii said J-Alert was set off throughout the prefecture, and officials were checking on malfunction reports.
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10: 30 a.m.
South Korea says its air force conducted a live-fire drill in response to the latest North Korean missile launch.
Seoul’s presidential spokesman Park Su-hyun said Tuesday that four F-15 fighters dropped eight MK-84 bombs that accurately hit targets at a military field near South Korea’s eastern coast.
The country’s air force says a MK-84 bomb has an explosive yield of a ton.
Park says national security director Chung Eui-yong called President Donald Trump’s national security adviser H.R. McMaster to discuss the North’s launch early Tuesday morning.
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9 a.m.
Australia’s foreign minister says North Korea firing a missile over Japan appeared to be a bargaining tactic.
Asked by a reporter if the launch was an attempt to improve North Korea’s bargaining power or a preparation for war, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said: “I think it is the former.”
Bishop added: “We have seen this pattern of behavior by the North Korean regimes over a number of decades. They ramp up the provocative behavior and it gets to a point where they then sit down and negotiate. I would like to think it’s the former at this point.”
Bishop says whether it was an act of war was a question for Japan to decide.
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7:58 a.m.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters that the Japanese government had been “completely” aware of and monitoring the North Korean missile launch Tuesday, noting that it had been prepared to protect people’s lives.
He said he will call for an urgent meeting in the U.N. to discuss further action, strongly demanding stepped up pressures against North Korea.
He said Japan will be prepared to “respond to all situations,” under the bilateral alliance with the U.S., to protect people’s safety.
Japanese officials said there was no damage to ships or anything else reported as the missile flew over Japan and plunged into the northern Pacific. Japan’s NHK TV said the missile separated into three parts.
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7:40 a.m.
A former South Korean military official who is now an analyst at Seoul’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies said that the early flight data suggests the North Korean missile that flew over Japan Tuesday was likely a Hwasong-12, a new intermediate range missile that the North has recently threatened to fire toward Guam.
The U.S. Defense Department says it is in the process of assessing the launch. Japanese officials said there was no damage to ships or anything else reported. Japan’s NHK TV said the missile separated into three parts.
Analyst Kim Dong-yub a said there was also a possibility the missile could have been a midrange Musudan, a missile with a potential 3,500-kilometer (2,180-mile) range that puts much of the Asia-Pacific region within reach, or a Pukguksong-2, a solid-fuel missile that can be fired faster and more secretly than weapons using liquid fuel.
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7:16 a.m.
The U.S. Defense Department is confirming that a North Korean missile flew over Japan.
The South Korean military says a North Korean missile flew 2,700 kilometers (1678 miles) and reached a height of 550 kilometers (341 miles)
The Pentagon says it is still in the process of assessing the launch.
It says the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, determined the missile launch did not pose a threat to North America.
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7:05 a.m.
South Korean officials say North Korea fired an unidentified projectile from its capital Pyongyang that flew over Japan, officials said, an especially aggressive test-flight that will rattle an already anxious region.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff on Tuesday said the South Korean and U.S. militaries were analyzing the launch and didn’t immediately confirm how far the projectile traveled. Japanese officials said the missile flew over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido and landed in the Pacific Ocean. There was no damage to ships or anything else reported. Japan’s NHK TV said the missile separated into three parts.
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