North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan and into the Pacific Friday, responding to new UN sanctions with its furthest-ever missile flight in what analysts called a demonstration of its ability to target Guam.
The launch, from near Pyongyang, came after the United Nations Security Council imposed an eighth set of measures on the isolated country following its sixth nuclear test earlier this month.
The blast was by far its largest to date and Pyongyang said it was a hydrogen bomb small enough to fit onto a missile.
In New York, the Security Council called an emergency meeting for later Friday and UN chief Antonio Guterres said talks on the crisis would be held on the sidelines of the General Assembly next week.
Seoul's defence ministry said it probably travelled around 3,700km and reached a maximum altitude of 770km.
It was "the furthest overground any of their ballistic missiles has ever travelled", Joseph Dempsey of the International Institute for Strategic Studies said on Twitter.
Physicist David Wright, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, added: "North Korea demonstrated that it could reach Guam with this missile, although the payload the missile was carrying is not known" and its accuracy was in doubt.
The North has raised global tensions with its rapid progress in weapons technology under leader Kim Jong-Un, who is closely associated with the programme and regularly pictured by state media overseeing launches and visiting facilities.
'Negotiations to defuse tensions'
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron agreed in a phone call on Friday that resuming direct talks with North Korea was the only way to resolve tensions over its nuclear programme, the Kremlin said.
In a statement, the Kremlin said the two leaders "were united in the opinion that it was unacceptable to allow an escalation in tension."
The crisis needs to be resolved "exclusively through political and diplomatic means, by restarting direct negotiations," they reportedly said.
Both Putin and Macron "decisively condemned the provocative" firing by North Korea of a ballistic missile Friday over Japan and into the Pacific, the statement said.
