Forex Trading For Beginners 2021: North Korea fires two ballistic missiles into Sea of Japan

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang, North Korea, 10 February 2021

North Korea has fired two ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan, says the US and Japan - the first such test since Joe Biden became US president.

Pyongyang is banned from testing ballistic missiles, which are considered threatening weapons, under UN Security Council resolutions.

Japan said no debris had fallen within its territorial waters.

It comes just days after North Korea fired two non-ballistic missiles into the Yellow Sea.

Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said on Thursday that the tests posed a threat to security and peace to his country as well as the region.

A statement from South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff initially reported the launch of two "unidentified projectiles".

Mr Biden has yet to officially comment on the latest test.

On Tuesday he played down the non-ballistic missile launch which took place over the weekend, saying the US did not consider it as a provocation. Those short-range missiles were thought to be either artillery or cruise missiles, which are not banned under the UN Security Council resolutions on North Korea.

Analysis box by Laura Bicker, Seoul correspondent

This is a bigger deal for the US and its allies.

The test at the weekend of either artillery or cruise missiles can be shrugged off. But this ballistic missile test is a clear violation of United Nations Security sanctions.

Having said that, Mr Biden's predecessor Donald Trump did wave off any questions regarding similar weapons tests in 2019.

The deal between Mr Trump and Kim Jong-un reached in Singapore in 2018 was that Pyongyang would not test long-range ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons.

At that time, the White House did not concern itself with smaller tests.

But Mr Biden's team is just back from Japan and South Korea, and promised that "America was back" and supporting its allies.

Perhaps then, the administration will have to say something about a weapons test which threatens its friends in North East Asia.

Washington will also be aware that Pyongyang has bigger weapons in its arsenal which it has not tested since late 2017.

North Korea has spent more than a year in isolation. It even cut off most trade with its closest ally China amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, and its economy is thought to be in a dire state.

Now that the weapons tests appear to be making a return, many are wondering just how far is Kim Jong-un willing to go to get the attention of the White House.

The tests come as the Biden administration continues to attempt to make diplomatic contact with North Korea.

Pyongyang has yet to acknowledge that Mr Biden is now in office, and the two countries remain at loggerheads over the North's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

The current focus of the new White House team and its allies is the impending review on North Korea policy.

Decades of sanctions and three summits between former US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have failed to prevent Pyongyang from developing a larger and more deadly nuclear arsenal.

Meanwhile earlier this month, the US received its first North Korean in custody after Mun Chol Myung was extradited from Malaysia. Mr Mun is a businessman accused of laundering money through the US financial system to provide luxury items in North Korea.