North Korea fired off a powerful long-range missile on Thursday, Japan’s Defense Ministry said, in a show of force just hours before Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol were due to meet in Tokyo for their first-ever formal summit.
The ministry said the “intercontinental ballistic missile-class” weapon had flown for about 70 minutes, traveling about 1,000 kilometers and hitting a maximum altitude of around 6,000 km, before falling into waters outside Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) some 250 kilometers west of Hokkaido’s Oshima-Oshima Island.
The missile was believed to have been fired on a “lofted” trajectory, meaning it had been shot nearly straight up so as to avoid overflying neighboring countries.