North Korea fires 'unidentified projectile', South claims

North Korea fired what could be a ballistic missile on Sunday, military officials in South Korea and Japan said, in what would be the first test since the nuclear-armed country conducted a record number of launches in January, Reuters reports. 

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) reported that North Korea had fired a suspected ballistic missile toward the sea off its east coast from a location near Sunan, where Pyongyang's international airport is located.

The airport has been the site of missile tests, including a pair of short-range ballistic missiles fired on Jan. 16.

Sunday's missile flew around to a maximum altitude of around 620 km (385 miles), to a range of 300 km (186 miles), JCS said.

Analysts said the flight data didn't closely match earlier tests, and suggested it could be a medium-range ballistic missile fired on a "lofted" trajectory.

"There have been frequent launches since the start of the year, and North Korea is continuing to rapidly develop ballistic missile technology," Japan's Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said in a televised statement. North Korea was threatening the security of Japan, the region and the international community, he said.

North Korea's last test was on Jan. 30, when it fired a Hwasong-12 intermediate range ballistic missile.

The largest weapon test-fired since 2017, the Hwasong-12 was reported to have flown to an altitude of about 2,000 km (1,200 miles) and range of 800 km (500 miles). That capped a record month of mostly short-range missile launches in January.