Anchor: On Thursday morning, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff(JCS) detected what appeared to be an intercontinental ballistic missile(ICBM) that North Korea launched into the East Sea. After flying about one-thousand kilometers from the launch site, the missile reportedly landed in waters west of Hokkaido outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
Kim Bum-soo has more. 

Report: The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected a projectile, deemed to be a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile, fired from the Pyongyang area around 7:10 Thursday morning. 

Launched at a lofted trajectory, the projectile soared to a maximum altitude of around seven-thousand kilometers, and flew for around 86 minutes, according to sources, longer than any other ballistic missile North Korea has launched so far.

However, due to the steep launch angle, the projectile traveled only as far as a short-range missile would, splashing into waters just outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

If the North had fired the projectile at a flatter angle for a longer flight, the test could have made the U.S. and its allies more anxious. 

In an unusually prompt announcement later on Thursday, the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was at the launch site. Kim was quoted as pledging to bolster his nuclear weapons program, blaming enemies for threatening the security of his country.  

Shortly after the military action, the White House issued a statement accusing Pyongyang of needlessly raising tensions in the region, but said the missile presented no immediate threat to the U.S. or its allies.

The carefully calibrated ICBM launch took place just days ahead of the U.S. presidential election this coming Tuesday, and hours after the defense chiefs of South Korea and the U.S. held their annual Security Consultative Meeting in Washington to condemn the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia.

The South Korean military said the two defense chiefs decided to respond to the North’s military action by deploying U.S. strategic assets to the region in combined exercises. 

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

South Korea’s Defense Intelligence Agency has said the North might conduct its seventh nuclear test around the time of the U.S. election.  
Kim Bum-soo, KBS World Radio News.