North Korea launched two ballistic missiles eastward early on Wednesday, Japan's and South Korea's militaries said, just hours after a U.S. ballistic missile submarine arrived in a South Korean port for the first time in four decades.
Both of the missiles appeared to have fallen outside Japan's exclusive economic zone, the Japanese Defence Ministry said.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) called on the North to cease such launches.
"We strongly condemn North Korea's successive ballistic missile launches as grave provocative acts that undermine the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula as well as the international community, and are a clear violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions," the JCS said in a statement.
The U.S. military said it was aware of the missile launches and was consulting closely with its allies and partners.
The launches do not appear to pose an immediate threat to the United States or to its allies, but the events highlight the destabilising impact of North Korea's illicit weapons programme, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement.
Related Story: U.S. Spy Aircraft Fled After North Korea Scrambled Jets, Kim Jong Un’s Sister Says
