North Korea on Tuesday fired “an unidentified projectile” towards the Yellow Sea, off the west coast of the Korean peninsula, the South Korean army announced.
“The North fired an unidentified projectile towards the West Sea,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, referring to the Yellow Sea located between the Korean Peninsula and China, without providing details.
The shooting comes as reports from South Korea’s Yonhap news agency recently reported a possible visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to South Korea this week, citing unspecified government sources.
Neither country has yet confirmed this visit.
Pyongyang carried out several short-range ballistic missile launches in early April aimed, according to state media, at “verifying the characteristics and power of a cluster bomb warhead”.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un also called in mid-May to strengthen front-line military units against the South Korean “sworn enemy”, according to the official KCNA agency.
The two neighboring countries are technically still at war since their 1950-1953 conflict concluded with an armistice and not a peace treaty.
Despite the wishes of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung elected last year for appeasement, Pyongyang systematically rejects Seoul’s outstretched hands.
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A rare brightening, however, emerged last week: the footballers of Naegohyang FC, the first North Korean sports team to travel to South Korea in eight years, won the Asian Football Champions League on Saturday.
After their title, the North Koreans unfurled their national flag, a gesture that has long been taboo in South Korea under the National Security Law.
