North Korea Fires Ballistic Missile as South Hosts Democracy Conference

North Korea Fires Ballistic Missile as South Hosts Democracy Conference
People sit near a television showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a railway station in Seoul, on March 9, 2023. Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images
|Updated:

North Korea fired a ballistic missile into the sea on Monday for the first time in two months, at a time when U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting Seoul to attend a conference hosted by President Yoon Suk Yeol on advancing democracy.

South Korea’s military said the missile was fired to the east of the Korean peninsula. Japan’s coast guard also reported the launch of what it said appeared to be a ballistic missile by North Korea and specified that it has already fallen.