The veteran diplomat served as a close aide to Kim Jong Un during nuclear talks with the United States and accompanied the North Korean leader to summits with then US president Donald Trump.
Allies launch ground-to-ground ATACMS missiles at targets in the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan, says Seoul's military.
North Korea fired eight ballistic missiles in a drill that adds to its record pace of launches for the year.
Officials from the United States, South Korea and Japan have met in Seoul for talks on North Korea amid signs the country is preparing to conduct a nuclear test for the first time since 2017.
The country reported another large jump in illnesses believed to be Covid-19 and encouraged good health habits as a mass outbreak spreads through its unvaccinated population.
US and South Korean officials have been saying for weeks that there are signs of new construction at Punggye-ri, North Korea's only known nuclear test site, and that Pyongyang could soon test another bomb.
North Korea will continue to develop its nuclear-armed military so that it could “preemptively and thoroughly contain and frustrate all dangerous attempts and threatening moves," Kim Jong-un said.
Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un has said that the country will continue to bolster its nuclear capabilities despite being under biting international sanctions over its nuclear weapons programme.
Pyongyang's latest launch was a huge, new intercontinental ballistic missile, state media reports, in a test leader Kim Jong-un said was designed to demonstrate might of its nuclear force and deter any US military moves.
Sanctions have targeted Russian citizens and Moscow-based entities complicit in helping Pyongyang purchase elements for its missile launches, the US Treasury said.
Two recent missile tests conducted by Pyongyang were of a new intercontinental ballistic missile system and the country will be punished with fresh sanctions, senior US official says.
The country's news state agency said the test involved cameras for a reconnaissance satellite conducting vertical and oblique photography of a specific area of Earth.
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