North Korea has fired a long-range missile that flew for 74 minutes – the longest flight time ever recorded.
According to Japanese defence officials, it travelled at an altitude of 3,728 miles (6,000km) with a range of 621 miles (1,000km).
It follows heated complaints from Pyongyang in recent days, which has accused US spyplanes of violating airspace.
Yasukazu Hamada, Japanese defence minister, said that the missile was likely launched on a lofted trajectory – almost vertically – which North Korea typically does to avoid neighbouring countries when it tests long-range missiles.
It was detected by South Korea’s military at around 10am, the South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said in a statement.
Pic: AP
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who is in Lithuania to attend a major NATO summit, ordered his staff to gather information and stay alert to prepare for unpredicted events, according to the prime minister’s office.
He said the peace and stability both of the region and the international community had been threatened as a result of the launch, and that Japan had lodged a protest through diplomatic channels in Beijing.
Mr Kishida is expected to meet with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday, and Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said a summit was also planned with South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
“We will respond in close cooperation with the international community,” Mr Matsuno said.
The launch came after North Korea released a series of statements accusing the US of flying a military plane close to the country to spy on the North.
Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, warned the US of “a shocking incident” in a statement on Monday, in which she claimed that the spyplane flew over the North’s exclusive economic zone eight times earlier in the day.
She said warplanes were deployed to chase the US plane away.
In another statement on Tuesday, Ms Kim said the US military would experience “a very critical flight” if it continues its aerial spying activities. North Korea’s military separately threatened to shoot down spyplanes.
Both the US and South Korea dismissed the accusations and urged North Korea it to refrain from any behaviour that raised animosities.
Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said the statements against the US were part of a North Korean pattern of “inflating external threats to rally domestic support and justify weapons tests”.
“Pyongyang also times its shows of force to disrupt what it perceives as diplomatic coordination against it, in this case, South Korea and Japan’s leaders meeting during the NATO summit,” he said.