TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan will urge the international community to increase pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear and missile development programs after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe strongly protested to Pyongyang over its latest firing of missiles on Monday.
Abe told a Diet committee that the missile launches were "utterly intolerable" and that "Japan will continue to coordinate closely with the United States, South Korea and other related countries to strongly urge North Korea to exercise restraint."
In such effort, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida agreed with his South Korean and U.S. counterparts, Yun Byung Se and Rex Tillerson, by telephone on plans to take a resolute stance toward North Korea, Kishida told reporters.
Four missiles flew some 1,000 kilometers eastward from North Korea before falling into the Sea of Japan around 300 to 350 kilometers east off Akita Prefecture in northeastern Japan, according to the Defense Ministry.
Of the four, three fell in Japan's exclusive economic zone, which reaches some 200 nautical miles (370 km) from the Japanese coastline, it said.
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