S. Korea says N. Korea has fired unidentified projectiles

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Wednesday fired several unidentified projectiles off its east coast, South Korea's military said, less than a week after the North launched two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea in a defiance of U.N. resolutions.

Observers say the launches were aimed at ramping up pressure on the United States to make concessions as the two countries are struggling to resume diplomacy on the North's nuclear weapons program.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement the latest launches were done from the North's Hodo peninsula on the east coast, a regular weapons launch site. It said South Korea's military is monitoring for possible additional launches by North Korea.

It wasn't immediately known exactly what North Korea fired or how far the projectiles flew.

The launches came six days after North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles that Seoul officials say flew 370 miles before landing off the North's east coast.

The latest launches also came hours after a senior U.S. official said President Donald Trump has sent mementos from his brief visit to an inter-Korean border town late last month to Kim.

The official said a top staffer from the National Security Council hand-delivered photographs from the June Trump-Kim meeting at the Korean Demilitarized Zone to a North Korean official last week. The Trump administration official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official wasn't authorized to speak publicly.

The DMZ meeting was the third summit between Trump and Kim since they first met in Singapore last year. Diplomacy between North Korea and the United States later fell apart as the second Trump-Kim summit in Vietnam in February ended without any agreement. In Vietnam, Trump rejected Kim's demand for widespread sanctions relief in return for dismantling his main nuclear complex, a partial disarmament step.

During the DMZ meeting, Trump and Kim agreed to resume the nuclear diplomacy in coming weeks, but there hasn't been any known meeting between the countries.