(ANSA) - ROME, FEBRUARY 18 - North Korea has launched an unidentified ballistic missile.
South Korean military sources reported the news.
"North Korea has launched an unidentified ballistic missile into the East Sea," the South Korean Army Joint Command said, referring to the body of water also known as the Sea of Japan.
Pyongyang's launch of the missile comes days before joint US-South Korea military exercises begin next week.
The missile fired by North Korea would have landed in Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reported.
"It appears that the North Korean-launched ballistic missile landed in Japan's EEZ, west of Hokkaido," Kishida said.
According to a spokesman for the Japanese government, it would be an intercontinental ballistic missile, an ICBM.
A Japanese Defense Ministry official had previously said the missile was expected to land about 200km west of the island of Oshima, off the northern island of Hokkaido.
(HANDLE).