North Korea fires unidentified projectile

South Korea’s military said on Thursday that North Korea had fired an unidentified projectile amid tensions with the U.S.

The South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that the projectile was fired in an easterly direction from the northwestern town of Sino-ri, according to Reuters. It was believed to have traveled about 260 miles, the news service noted, citing a South Korean official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Japanese defense ministry reportedly said there was no immediate threat to Japan’s security and that it had not detected any ballistic missiles in territorial waters.{mosads}

“You don’t know what missile it is just from how far it flew,” Yang Uk, a senior research fellow at the Korea Defense and Security Forum, told Reuters. “But one thing is clear – there’s no doubt that it is a missile.”

“North Korea has returned to its classic escalation tactics from before,” Yang added. “I believe they will keep escalating by using what appear to be short-range missiles, something that will not cause the U.S. to react right away.”

The report comes less than a week after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the firing of what the South called short-range projectiles, which were believed to have flown up to 125 miles. North Korea said Wednesday that its tests were not intended as provocations and were “regular and self-defensive.”

President Trump responded to that launch by saying he remains confident in the U.S. and North Korea’s ability to reach a nuclear deal, tweeting that Kim “knows that I am with him & does not want to break his promise to me.” Trump and Kim have attended two summits together to attempt to reach a deal on Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, one in Singapore in 2018 and the other a session in Vietnam earlier this year that was cut short.