North Korea, South Korea trade ballistic missile tests amid stalled U.S. nuclear talks

North Korea fired two ballistic missiles off its east coast Wednesday and South Korea said hours later that it had carried out a successful test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile.

The rival launches intensified an arms race between the two countries amid stalled nuclear diplomacy with the United States and just two days after Pyongyang said it had tested a new cruise missile.

The first weapons activity by Kim Jong Un's regime in almost six months came as President Joe Biden's envoy for North Korea, Sung Kim, was in Tokyo for talks with Japan and South Korea on how to end the diplomatic standoff.

Wednesday's dueling tests will likely give fresh impetus to that effort — and add to the foreign policy headaches facing the White House.

The underwater-launched ballistic missile test makes South Korea only the eighth country known to have developed such a weapon, joining its rival to the north, as well as the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and India. It is the first country without nuclear weapons to have an SLBM.

South Korea's possession of the missile was first reported earlier this month but was not confirmed by the government, which rarely makes public declarations of weapons tests, until Wednesday.

President Moon Jae-in observed the test Wednesday afternoon, his office said, with the weapon "expected to play a big role in self-reliant national defense and establishment of peace on the Korean Peninsula." It added that the missile, launched from a 3,000-ton-class submarine, flew a planned distance and hit its target precisely.