North Korea fired a ballistic missile

North Korea fired a ballistic missile on Sunday, South Korea's military said, days after Pyongyang staged live-fire drills near the tense maritime border with the South, AFP reported.

"North Korea fired an unidentified ballistic missile toward the East Sea," the Seoul Joint Command said in a Jan. 14 statement, referring to the region also known as the Sea of ​​Japan, without giving further details.

Japan's coast guard said "an object, potentially a ballistic missile, was launched from North Korea," citing information from the country's defense ministry, and warned ships to be cautious.

North Korea's latest missile test was the Hwasong-18 solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile, which it fired into the East Sea on December 17.

The apparent test comes days after North Korea conducted a series of rare live-fire drills near its sea border with South Korea, prompting drills and evacuation orders in some South Korean border islands.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un also called Seoul his "main enemy" earlier this week and warned he would not hesitate to destroy the South, as he toured major weapons factories.

"The historic time has finally come when we need to define as the state most hostile to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the entity called the Republic of Korea (South Korea)," Kim's official Korean News Agency announced on Wednesday, January 10.

Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in decades, after Jong Un enshrined the country's permanent status as a nuclear power in the constitution and tested several advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Last year, Pyongyang also successfully launched a reconnaissance satellite into orbit after receiving what South Korea claimed was Russian aid in exchange for arms shipments for Moscow's war in Ukraine.

Kim has also tested a number of advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), including an alleged solid-propellant version.

At Pyongyang's policy meetings at the end of the year, Kim threatened a nuclear attack on South Korea and called for a boost to his country's military arsenal ahead of an armed conflict he warned could "break out at any time".

In 2022, Pyongyang declared itself an "irreversible" nuclear power and said it would never give up its nuclear weapons program, which the regime sees as crucial to its survival.

The United Nations Security Council has passed many resolutions calling on North Korea to halt its nuclear and ballistic missile programs since Pyongyang first conducted a nuclear test in 2006.