SEOUL- North Korea launched a ballistic missile toward the Sea of Japan on Tuesday morning, the South Korean military's joint chiefs of staff and other sources said.

The missile is believed to have fallen into waters within Japan's exclusive economic zone after flying for about 40 minutes, the Japanese government said.

According to the South Korean military, North Korea fired the missile around 9:40 a.m. (12:40 a.m. GMT) from Kusong in the northwestern region.

The missile seems to have been launched on a lofted trajectory that takes it to a higher altitude than usual. The Japanese Defense Ministry said the missile reached an altitude of far over 2,500 kilometers.

The South Korean military estimates that the missile flew about 930 kilometers. The projectile was an intermediate-range ballistic missile, according to the US Department of Defense.

South Korea is conducting analysis bearing in mind the possibility that the projectile was an intercontinental ballistic missile, even though the initial assessment by Seoul and Washington holds that the object was an intermediate-range ballistic missile, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said.

This was presumably the fifth time that any North Korean ballistic missile fired by North Korea has dropped into the Japanese EEZ since August last year.

In March this year, three of the four missiles launched together by the reclusive state from a northwestern region apparently fell into the Japanese EEZ.

The latest launch "clearly shows that North Korea has ignored a series of warnings from the international community and that threats from the country have increased further," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in Tokyo.

Japan will work together with the United States and South Korea in order to boost international pressure on North Korea, the prime minister also said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference that there has been no report of damage from the North Korea missile on aircraft or ships.

Tokyo lodged a protest with Pyongyang through a diplomatic channel.

At a National Security Council meeting in the morning, Abe said that his government will continue urging Pyongyang to exercise self-restraint, while maintaining a firm stance against the reclusive country by implementing necessary measures.

It was the first missile launch by North Korea since June 8, when the country fired cruise missiles from an eastern region toward the Sea of Japan.

Only on Friday, US President Donald Trump and South Korea's Moon agreed at their first summit to make decisive responses to North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile development programs.

North Korea may want to highlight its missile capability ahead of an upcoming trilateral summit between Japan, the United States and South Korea, pundits said.

The summit will be held in Germany on the sidelines of a two-day meeting of leaders of the Group of 20 advanced and emerging economies from Friday. (Jiji Press)