North Korea has fired an unidentified projectile off the country's west coast, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff say.
If confirmed as a missile launch, it would be the first since April 19, when North Korea test-fired several short-range ballistic missiles, which it said were equipped with cluster bombs.
In early April, Pyongyang also said it tested a new cluster-bomb warhead on a ballistic missile and an electromagnetic weapon, in a move that analysts said was part of efforts to showcase the North's capacity to fight a modern war.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said in March that his country's status as a nuclear-armed state was irreversible and that expanding a "self-defensive nuclear deterrent" was essential to national security.
Kim has taken an increasingly hardline stance toward South Korea, which he has declared his country's permanent and most hostile enemy while diplomacy is stalled and tensions rise over his nuclear ambitions.
with AP