South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff(JCS) suspects that North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile(ICBM) toward the East Sea on Thursday morning. 

The JCS said it detected the launch from the Pyongyang area around 7:10 a.m., adding the missile was fired at a steep angle and flew about one-thousand kilometers before landing in waters to the east. 

It said the South Korean military has strengthened its monitoring and vigilance and is sharing information with the United States and Japan, while maintaining a full readiness posture.
 
The Japanese government says the missile appears to have landed outside the country’s exclusive economic zone in waters west of Okushiri Island, Hokkaido.

The launch comes hours after the defense chiefs of South Korea and the United States held their annual Security Consultative Meeting in Washington and condemned the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia in the “strongest terms.”

If confirmed, this would be the North’s first ICBM launch since December 18 last year, when it test-fired a Hwasong-18 ICBM.

On September 18, North Korea launched a cruise missile and a new tactical short-range ballistic missile called the Hwasongpho-11 Da-4.5, which is capable of carrying a four-point-five-ton conventional warhead.