Pyongyang fires two 'unidentified projectiles': Seoul

Seoul: North Korea fired two "unidentified projectiles" on Thursday, the 'Thanksgiving' holiday in the US, Seoul said, as nuclear talks between Pyongyang and Washington remain deadlocked.

The brief statement from the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Pyongyang fired two projectiles eastwards from South Hamgyong province which came down in the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea. It said the launch was carried out at 16:59 pm local time -- or the early hours in Washington DC, on one of the US' biggest annual holidays.

It was also one day short of the two-year anniversary

of its first test of its Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile, which analysts say is capable of reaching the entire US mainland. Japan's defence ministry described the projectiles as "ballistic missile-like" but said they did not come down in the country's exclusive economic zone.

Pyongyang is banned from firing ballistic missiles under the UN Security Council resolutions. Thursday's launch was the latest in a series of weapons tests by Pyongyang, which fired what it called two "super-large multiple rocket launcher" systems last month.

US President Donald Trump has played

down the recent launches, repeatedly pointing to North Korea's moratorium on nuclear tests and intercontinental

ballistic missile launches

as foreign policy successes for him. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un

adopted a vaguely-worded statement on the "complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula" at their first summit in Singapore in June last year, but little progress has since been made.

Negotiations have been gridlocked since a second summit between the pair in Hanoi in February collapsed without a deal.