SEOUL: North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile over the Sea of Japan on Thursday, Seoul’s military said, with the launch coming after Pyongyang lambasted Japan’s military build-up in the Pacific.

North Korea, which since 2019 has repeatedly declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state, featured among growing regional threats in a recent Japanese government assessment.

Tokyo’s Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said this week that Japan’s military needs to be boosted with a “sense of urgency and crisis”.

In a statement carried by North Korean state media on Wednesday, Kim Yo Jong — the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un — said Pyongyang’s “leadership will set up additional military options which are obviously due to Japan’s transformation”.

On Thursday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said that “our military detected one short-range ballistic missile launched from the Wonsan area of North Korea at around 5pm (0800 GMT)”. Authorities in Seoul and Washington were analysing the missile’s exact specifications, it added in a message to news organisations.

The JCS said earlier the missile was launched towards the East Sea, referring to the body of water also known as the Sea of Japan. Tokyo’s defence ministry posted on X that “something that may be a ballistic missile has been launched from North Korea”, later saying there was no impact “on the areas around Japan”.

Seoul has strengthened surveillance and maintained readiness for possible additional launches while sharing information with its security allies the United States and Japan, the JCS said.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2026