North Korea has fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast just an hour before leader Kim Jong-un met President Vladimir Putin in Russia.
It appeared to be the first launch to occur while Kim was abroad for a rare trip with most of his top military leaders, demonstrating an increasing level of delegation and more refined control systems for the country's nuclear and missile programs, analysts said.
The missiles were launched from near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, and flew about 650km, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said, condemning the launch as a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters Japan had lodged a protest against North Korea through diplomatic channels in Beijing.
Both missiles fell in the sea outside Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), he said.
The nuclear-armed North has conducted regular launches of everything from short-range and cruise missiles to massive intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that can strike the continental United States.
All of North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear weapons activities are banned by United Nations Security Council resolutions that were last passed with the support of Pyongyang's partners in China and Russia in 2017.
Since then, Beijing and Moscow have called for sanctions to be eased on the North to jump-start diplomatic talks and improve the humanitarian situation.
Kim didn’t leave his country for six years after taking power in 2011 when his father died.
In 2018 and 2019 he visited China, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam and Russia in nine separate trips, but his current visit in Russia is the first since then.
How Kim maintains command and control over his country's missile and nuclear forces while abroad is unclear, but analysts say recent drills have revealed a system for overseeing nuclear weapons similar to those used in the US and Russia.
A report in March by the Stimson Centre's 38 North program, which tracks North Korea, said state media announcements outlined a process that includes commanders of units and various sub-units, a launch approval system, and “technical and mechanical devices” governing nuclear weapons control.
In recent years North Korea appears to have moved away from an "automated" system under which Kim might dial a telephone number and say a password to authorise a launch, to "devolution", in which authority can be handed over to a trusted proxy, said Michael Madden, a leadership expert with the Stimson Centre.
"That way if Kim is killed in an attack or rendered incommunicado, a surrogate would have the authority to launch a nuclear counterstrike on his behalf," he said.
North Korea last fired two short-range ballistic missiles on August 30.
with agencies
