South Korea says North Korea fired projectile to sea

PTI, Oct 19, 2021, 8:40 AM IST

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Seoul: South Korea’s military says North Korea has fired an unidentified projectile to its eastern waters as it continued a recent streak of weapons tests apparently aimed at pressuring Washington and Seoul over a stalled nuclear diplomacy.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff on Tuesday did not immediately say what the North fired or how far the weapon flew.

Nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang have stalled for more than two years over disagreements in exchanging the release of crippling US-led sanctions against North Korea and the North’s denuclearisation steps.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to strengthen his nuclear deterrent since his diplomatic fallout with then-President Donald Trump. His government has so far rejected the Biden administration’s offers to restart dialogue without preconditions, saying that Washington must first abandon its “hostile policy,” a term the North mainly uses to refer to sanctions and US-South Korea military exercises.

Ending a months-long lull, the country has been ramping up its weapons tests since September while making conditional peace offers to Seoul, reviving a pattern of pressuring South Korea to get what it wants from the United States.