THE White House has announced that the US national security adviser spoke separately with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts about North Korea’s missile launch over Japan on Tuesday.

“In both calls, the national security advisers consulted on appropriate and robust joint and international responses and US national security adviser Jake Sullivan reinforced the United States’ ironclad commitments to the defence of Japan and the ROK (South Korea),” national security spokesman Adrienne Watson said in a statement issued last night, local time.

North Korea fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan today, prompting Tokyo to activate the country’s missile alert system and order people to take shelter.

In a separate statement, the US Indo-Pacific Command also condemned the missile launch.

“The United States condemns these actions and calls on the DPRK to refrain from further unlawful and destabilising acts,” it said in a statement issued yesterday, using the official abbreviation for North Korea.

The last time North Korea fired a missile over Japan was in 2017, at the height of a period of “fire and fury” when Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong-un traded insults with then-US president Donald Trump. – AFP, October 4, 2022.