North Korea fired an unidentified projectile off its east coast on Sunday (September 20, 2026), South Korea’s military said, days after Pyongyang reaffirmed its status as a nuclear-armed state.

The launch came eight days after North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles towards the East Sea — also called the Sea of Japan — as part of what it later described as a joint firepower drill.

It also followed Pyongyang’s rejection this week of a resolution by the UN nuclear watchdog demanding that it halt its nuclear activities.

“The North has fired an unidentified projectile into the East Sea,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

The office of the Japanese Prime Minister also confirmed the launch, saying on X that the projectile was a “suspected ballistic missile”.

Japan’s Defence Ministry later said the projectile had “already fallen”, without giving further details.

North Korea accused “hostile forces” of seeking to end the country’s nuclear programme during this week’s General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

A foreign ministry spokesperson said the IAEA resolution “has no effect on the DPRK’s position as a nuclear weapons state”, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name.

North Korea has legally enshrined its status as a nuclear-armed state, with its leadership declaring the country’s atomic arsenal permanent and irreversible.

U.S. President Donald Trump said in August that North Korea possessed 57 “very powerful” nuclear weapons, while South Korea has put the figure in between 80 and 120.

North Korea said on Monday (September 14, 2026) it conducted a joint live-fire drill involving missiles, artillery and drones that it claimed demonstrated “the huge destructive power of concentration fire.” The official Korean Central News Agency said Saturday’s (September 12) drill was meant to get familiar with the procedure for the operation of the integrated firepower control system. South Korea’s military earlier said it detected short-range ballistic missile launches from North Korea’s eastern coastal Wonsan area on Saturday (September 12) morning.

After observing the drill, Marshal Pak Jong Chon said the drill would “improve the level of specialisation to bring down the enemy’s armed forces organisationally and structurally once an order is issued.” He added the weapons systems mobilised demonstrated “the huge destructive power of concentration fire,” according to KCNA.

It is extremely difficult to independently verify North Korean claims on its weapons tests. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said several missiles fired Saturday flew about 250 kilometres each in a direction toward North Korea’s eastern waters. The flight distances signal the weapons are designed to strike targets in South Korea.

The firing drill marked North Korea’s first public ballistic missile launches in about three weeks.

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump scaled back a major bilateral military drill with South Korea, citing what he called a good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. That is an apparent effort to revive diplomacy between them, but North Korea rebuffed Mr. Trump’s overture saying just shortening the drill will not change its “provocative, aggressive nature.” Buoyed by his advancing nuclear arsenal and deepened ties with Russia and China, experts say Mr. Kim likely thinks he has greater leverage in possible diplomacy with the U.S. than when he first met Mr. Trump in 2018-19.

Mr. Kim said earlier this year that he could return to talks if the U.S. drops its “hostile policy” against his country and respects what he calls the North’s status as a nuclear state.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister has demanded a detailed “explanation” from Seoul over a drone it accused South Korea of flying over its territory, state media reported on Sunday (January 11, 2026).

The North alleged on Saturday that the craft crossed from the South Korean border county of Ganghwa into the North Korean city of Kaesong in early January, and released photos of wreckage from the drone it claimed to have shot down.

Seoul rejected the allegation, with its Defence Ministry saying the drone was not a model operated by its military.

“Fortunately, the ROK’s military expressed an official stand that it was not done by itself and that it has no intention to provoke or irritate us,” Kim Yo Jong said, using South Korea’s official name in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“But a detail [sic] explanation should be made about the actual case of a drone that crossed the southern border of our Republic,” she said, according to KCNA.

In response to the North’s accusation, Seoul’s military said its own investigation had revealed it does not “possess the unmanned aerial vehicle in question, nor did it operate any unmanned aerial vehicles at the time and date specified by North Korea”.

President Lee Jae Myung on Saturday ordered a “swift and rigorous investigation” by a joint military-police investigative team.

On the possibility that civilians operated the drone, Mr. Lee said: “If true, it is a serious crime that threatens peace on the Korean Peninsula and national security.”

But Ms. Kim said she did not care whether it was a military or civilian drone, saying “that is not the one [detail] we want to know”.

“Clear is just the fact that the drone from the ROK violated the airspace of our country,” she added, according to KCNA.

The new drone allegation comes as former President Yoon Suk Yeol is standing trial on charges that he illegally ordered drone operations, hoping to provoke a response from Pyongyang and use it as a pretext for his short-lived bid to impose martial law.

Yoon was impeached and removed from office in April last year over his martial law attempt.