North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile off its east coast towards Japan early on Wednesday, its neighbours said, just days before US-South Korea Joint Military drills which Pyongyang views as invasion rehearsals.

This is the second such test in less than a week.

“Our military detected at around 6am (2100 GMT on Tuesday) a ballistic missile launched by North Korea from the Wonsan area towards the East Sea,” Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a message to reporters.

Japan’s Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi called the launch a ‘threat to peace and security in our region’, adding that Tokyo had lodged a strong protest with North Korea through diplomatic channels in Beijing.

“It’s a serious problem that affects the safety of the Japanese people,” he said at a press conference.

The suspected ballistic missile launch came just two days after South Korea and the US announced that they will kick off their annual joint military drills on August 17.

The upcoming drills are a regular summer feature, designed to coordinate their defence against the nuclear-armed Pyongyang.

North Korea has condemned these drills on several occasions before, often staging missile tests before and after the exercises.

“North Korea has never simply let a South Korea-US joint military exercise pass without a response,” said Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University.

“This is a message that Pyongyang is closely watching the upcoming drills and could stage a provocation if it deems one necessary,” he said.

After last year’s drills began, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un claimed the exercise had grown more provocative than before and showed Seoul and Washington’s ‘will to ignite a war’. He said it had prompted North Korea to respond with ‘proactive and overwhelming’ countermeasures.

On August 6, the US, South Korea and Japan detected the launch of a short-range ballistic missile from the North in what was its first ballistic weapons testing activity since late June.

Pyongyang, which usually releases details of tests a day later, did not initially confirm the launch.

DW