South Korean military officials say the launch, directed at the East Sea, appears to be unsuccessful.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the launch came from North Korea’s capital region late on Wednesday. The missile was fired into the sea east of North Korea and the effort apparently failed, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said early on Thursday without giving details, including the type of missile fired.

The North Korean launch came hours after South Korea suspended parts of the 2018 inter-Korean military tension reduction agreement in response to the North’s launch on Tuesday of a military spy satellite.

The agreement had created a buffer zone and barred aerial surveillance on the heavily militarised border with the North.

On Tuesday, North Korea’s space agency said it had successfully launched a Malligyong-1 satellite into orbit, part of an effort to enhance surveillance capabilities against the United States and South Korean forces.

South Korea and its alllies condemned the launch as a violation of United Nations resolutions. Military authorities in South Korea confirmed that the spy satellite has entered orbit but said they will need additional time to assess whether it is functional.

The White House said the launch “raises tensions and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region and beyond”.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said his government had made a “strong protest against North Korea”.

North Korea has consistently asserted that building up its surveillance capabilities is a “sovereign right”, striking a defiant tone in the face of widespread opposition and as tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula.

The country had tried to launch what it called spy satellites on two previous occasions this year, but both of those efforts ended in failure.