People watch a television broadcast of North Korea firing a short-range ballistic missile towards the sea off its east coast, at a train station in Seoul, South Korea, October 22, 2025. Photo: Reuters
North Korea fired what appeared to be several short-range ballistic missiles on Wednesday, the South Korean military said, a week before a key meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders in South Korea.
It was the first ballistic missile launch since May by Pyongyang, which defied the United Nations Security Council’s ban on such weapons.
It was also the first such launch since Lee Jae Myung was elected president in South Korea, with a platform of engagement with North Korea.
Lee and U.S. President Donald Trump are expected to meet next week in South Korea at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum summit. Trump is also expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
South Korea on Wednesday detected several projectiles believed to be short-range ballistic missiles fired from an area near the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, towards the northeast, its Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
Trump’s visit to South Korea
Lee and Trump discussed the idea of trying to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during the U.S. president’s visit to the South, but Pyongyang has not publicly responded to the idea.
U.S. officials considered, but never confirmed, a trip to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
South Korea has suspended visits to the Joint Security Area (JSA) of the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom until early November, but has not confirmed any plans to meet with Kim.
Trump and Kim held three summits during Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021 and exchanged a number of letters that Trump called “beautiful,” before the unprecedented diplomatic effort collapsed over U.S. demands that Kim give up his nuclear weapons.
Read: North Korea holds military parade
In September, Kim expressed “good memories” of Trump, saying there was no reason to avoid negotiations with the United States if Washington stopped insisting his country give up nuclear weapons, but that it would never give up the nuclear arsenal to end sanctions.
“It’s not at all inconceivable that Donald Trump could say here in Washington, ‘Denuclearization is our goal, it’s our policy,’ and then go to Panmunjom and say, ‘Oh, you know, Kim Jong Un is a nuclear power,'” said Victor Cha of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Even if it’s a short meeting, in a broader context, with everything that the United States is facing these days, it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.”
Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that while a Trump-Kim meeting was not impossible, the US president’s known timetable and schedule could make it unlikely.
“Trump is only here for a night or two days, and because of the Xi-Trump meeting, that probably takes up all the bandwidth or resources of the U.S. government,” he said.
Several missiles launched
Nuclear-armed North Korea has gradually improved its missile capabilities over the past decade, defying multiple United Nations sanctions, by testing long-range ballistic missiles with potential ranges to strike the U.S. mainland if fired on a calibrated trajectory for that purpose.
Learn more: Trump wants to meet North Korea’s Kim
The South Korean military said it detected movement before launch, then tracked the projectiles after they were fired and traveled about 350 km (217 miles), the military said.
The missiles appear to have fallen inland, a military official said separately.
Japan’s new Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, said a North Korean missile launch had no impact on Japan’s security and that Tokyo was sharing real-time information with the United States.
North Korea last launched ballistic missiles on May 8, when it fired several short-range missiles from its eastern coast.
North Korea presented its latest intercontinental ballistic missile in a parade this month attended by China’s prime minister.
