South Korea says North Korea fired projectile to sea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — 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 U.S.-led sanctions against North Korea and the North’s denuclearization 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 U.S.-South Korea military exercises.

Ending a monthslong 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.

韩国首尔（美联社）——韩国军方称，朝鲜向其东部海域发射了一枚不明飞行物，这是朝鲜近期一系列武器试验的延续，显然旨在就陷入僵局的核外交向华盛顿和首尔施压。

韩国联合参谋本部周二没有立即说明朝鲜发射了什么武器，也没有说明武器飞行了多远。

由于双方在解除美国主导的对朝鲜的严厉制裁和朝鲜采取无核化措施之间存在分歧，华盛顿和平壤之间的核谈判已经停滞了两年多。

自与时任美国总统唐纳德·特朗普外交关系破裂以来，朝鲜领导人金正恩誓言要加强其核威慑力量。迄今为止，朝鲜政府拒绝了拜登政府提出的无条件重启对话的提议，称华盛顿必须首先放弃其“敌对政策”。朝鲜主要用“敌对政策”一词来指代制裁和美韩联合军演。

结束了长达数月的平静期，该国自9月以来一直在加紧进行武器试验，同时向首尔提出有条件的和平提议，恢复了向韩国施压以从美国获得其想要的东西的模式。