WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump and the North Korean missile launch (all times local):
7:50 p.m.
In a direct response to North Korea’s missile launch, U.S. and South Korean soldiers fired “deep strike” precision missiles into South Korean territorial waters on Tuesday, That from U.S. military officials in Seoul.
The U.S. Eighth Army said the missile firings were a show of force meant to demonstrate U.S.-South Korean solidarity.
The U.S. asserted Tuesday that North Korea’s latest missile launch was indeed an intercontinental ballistic missile, as the North had boasted and the U.S. and South Korea had feared. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called it a “new escalation of the threat” to the U.S.
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6:50 p.m.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says North Korea’s latest missile test was with an intercontinental ballistic missile.
And Tillerson says that’s a new escalation of the threat posed to the United States and the world by North Korea.
Tillerson says the U.S. will bring North Korea’s action before the United Nations Security Council.
His statement provided the first confirmation of the U.S. conclusion that the missile was an ICBM.
The U.S. military’s initial assessment was that North Korea fired an intermediate-range missile.
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3:20 a.m.
President Donald Trump is criticizing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after that country’s latest missile launch, asking, “Does this guy have anything better to do with his life?”
Trump says on Twitter that it’s “Hard to believe that South Korea … and Japan will put up with this much longer.”
And he urges North Korea’s biggest ally, China, to “put a heavy move on North Korea and end this nonsense once and for all!”
South Korean officials said early Tuesday that North Korea had launched another ballistic missile toward Japan, part of a string of recent test-firings.
The Defense Department says it is working to confirm the initial reporting.
Shortly before Trump’s tweets, the White House said he had been briefed on the South Korean report.
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