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North Korea on Tuesday fired a mid-range ballistic missile designed to carry a nuclear payload that flew over Japan’s northern Hokkaido Island and splashed into the northern Pacific Ocean, Reuters reports. The test, one of the most provocative from the reclusive regime came as Washington and Seoul conduct war games nearby, provoking Pyongyang which sees the military exercise as a preparation for invasion.

“North Korea’s reckless action is an unprecedented, serious and a grave threat to our nation,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters.

 

Prime Minister Abe said he spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday and they agreed to increase pressure on North Korea. Trump also said the United States was “100 percent with Japan.”

 

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile traveled around 2,700 kilometers (1,677 miles) and reached a maximum height of 550 kilometers (341 miles) as it traveled over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.

 

North Korea has conducted launches at an unusually fast pace this year — 13 times, Seoul says — and some analysts believe it could have viable long-range nuclear missiles before the end of U.S. President Donald Trump’s first term in early 2021.

 

In a statement from the presidential blue house in South Korea, it said that Seoul and the United States had discussed deploying additional strategic assets on the Korean peninsula, without giving more details, the statement said.

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