TOKYO, Oct 25: North Korea was believed to have fired a short-range anti-ship missile into the Sea of Japan (East Sea) on Saturday, a press report said.

The Defence Agency obtained information that the missile was fired from North Korea’s east coast at around 3:00 pm local time, Kyodo News said quoting agency sources.

No agency official was immediately available to confirm the report.

On Monday, North Korea test-fired a similar anti-ship missile into the Sea of Japan (East Sea) for the third time this year as part of routine military exercises, South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff (JCS) said.

But the JCS denied Japanese press reports that the Stalinist state, at the centre of a crisis stemming from its nuclear arms programme, fired another short-range missile on Tuesday.

The anti-ship missile is presumed to have a range of 100 kilometres and poses no security threat to Japan unlike ballistic missiles, the sources said.—AFP