According to a statement from the South Korean presidential office, North Korea it fired a missile from its eastern coastal region of Wonsan. Seoul held an emergency meeting of the national security council to discuss this latest launch.
Earlier, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea had launched an unidentified missile from its east coast, but gave no further details.
Revival of US-North Korea diplomacy
The launch comes as North Korea conducts a series of weapons tests even as US President Donald Trump recently scaled back military exercises with South Korea in what appears to be an effort to revive diplomacy with leader Kim Jong Un.
Earlier this month, North Korea said it had conducted joint exercises involving missiles, artillery and drones that it said demonstrated "enormous destructive power". The tests involved firing various types of weapons simultaneously, with the likely goal of developing the ability to overwhelm South Korean and American air defenses.
Those September 12 weapons tests were conducted as the US and South Korea wrapped up their five-day military drills, which North Korea sees as a provocation.
Kim Jong Un has focused on expanding his nuclear arsenal after the failure of his diplomatic initiative with US President Trump in 2019.
Trump last month ordered the Pentagon to significantly scale back annual military exercises with South Korea, citing what he said was a "good relationship with Kim," who has called such maneuvers exercises for an invasion.
But Kim's sister and senior official Kim Yo-jong rejected Trump's offer of cooperation and said that curtailing the drills would not change their "provocative and aggressive nature."
The North Korean military subsequently launched about 10 short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea, apparently making good on a previous threat to respond to US-South Korean military exercises.
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