South Korea says North fires unidentified ‘projectile’

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South Korea’s defence ministry said Saturday that North Korea fired at least one “unidentified projectile” eastward, weeks after Pyongyang dismissed Seoul’s latest peace overtures as a “deceptive farce”.

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North Korea fired at least one “unidentified projectile eastward”, Seoul’s defence ministry said in a statement, without providing details.

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Pyongyang recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with South Korea, Washington’s security ally, describing its latest peace efforts as a “clumsy, deceptive farce”.

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The announcement came hours after South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok said that US President Donald Trump thinks a meeting with Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong Un would be “good”.

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Washington has for decades led efforts to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear programme, but summits, sanctions and diplomatic pressure have had little impact.

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In recent months, the Trump administration has pushed to revive high-level talks with Pyongyang, eyeing a possible summit with Kim Jong Un this year, potentially during Trump’s April visit to Beijing.

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Seoul’s Kim, who met Trump in Washington, said the US president told him: “Meeting (Kim Jong Un) would be good” and “it could happen when we go to China this time, or it might not”.

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Trump said during a trip to Asia in October that he was “100 percent” open to meeting with Kim Jong Un, a remark that went unanswered by the North.

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After largely ignoring those overtures for months, Kim Jong Un recently said that the two nations could “get along” if Washington accepted Pyongyang’s nuclear status.

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