North Korea fires suspected ballistic missiles, Japan says

SEOUL, April 19 (Reuters) – North Korea fired suspected ballistic missiles, Japan said on Sunday, marking the latest in a flurry of launches by Pyongyang to accelerate efforts to boost its military capabilities.

The incident marks the North’s seventh ballistic missile launch this year and its fourth in April alone.

“As the U.S. is focused on Iran, the North sees this as a golden time to upgrade their nuclear power and missile capability,” Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University, said.

Such tests violate U.N. Security Council resolutions against the North’s missile programme. Pyongyang rejects the U.N. ban and says it infringes its sovereign ​right to self-defense.

Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi told reporters the launch was multiple and appeared to have fallen outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

South Korea’s military said the ballistic missile flew eastward, Yonhap News Agency said, without giving details. South Korea’s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin, John Geddie, Nobuhiro Kubo, Additional reporting by Joyce Lee, Editing by Franklin Paul, Rod Nickel)