TOKYO: North Korea’s reported test launches of new long-range cruise missiles would threaten the peace and security of areas surrounding Japan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said Monday.

At a press conference, Kato also said the Japanese government has not confirmed any missile flight toward or into Japan’s exclusive economic zone and that Tokyo will continue to gather information while keeping an eye on North Korea’s military movements in close cooperation with Washington and Seoul.

Earlier in the day, North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said the country successfully test-fired a new type of long-range cruise missile on Saturday and Sunday.

UN Security Council sanctions resolutions ban North Korea from firing ballistic missiles, not cruise missiles.

But the government will try to find out whether the latest tests violate a 2017 UNSC resolution that says North Korea “shall not conduct any further launches that use ballistic missile technology,” informed sources said.

In a related development Monday, Noh Kyu-duk, South Korea’s special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, said in Tokyo that Seoul’s analysis of the missile tests is under way.

Noh, here for working-level talks among United States, Japan and his country set for Tuesday, made the remark at a meeting with Takehiro Funakoshi, director-general of the Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau.

Funakoshi said at the meeting that Japan is concerned about the possibility of North Korea improving its missile technology.

JIJI Press