North Korea Fires ICBM Before Rivals Meet in Tokyo to Mend Ties

North Korea test-fired a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile, hours before a planned summit between South Korean and Japanese leaders in Tokyo.

(Bloomberg) — North Korea test-fired a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile, hours before a planned summit between South Korean and Japanese leaders in Tokyo.

Japan has determined that the missile launched by North Korea on Thursday was likely an ICBM, national public broadcaster NHK reported in a one-line dispatch. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the launch of a long-range ballistic missile took place at around at 7:10 a.m. from an area near Pyongyang’s main international airport, where North Korea has a facility to launch ICBMs designed to carry a warhead to the US.

The missile fell in waters outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone, Kyodo News reported. North Korea last test-fired an ICBM designed to carry a warhead to the US mainland last month. That missile flew for about 66 minutes and reached an altitude of about 5,700 kilometers (3,540 miles).

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is due to leave Thursday for Tokyo, as he tries to end several years of feuding over compensation for Japan’s use of Korean forced labor during its 1910-45 occupation of the peninsula. It’s the first visit by a South Korean leader since 2019, and will include a meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the first such summit on Japanese soil in more than a decade.

Yoon and Kishida will discuss a proposal in which certain South Korean firms would pay into a fund offering compensation for Koreans conscripted to work at Japanese mines and factories during the colonial period.

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