Tag Archives: Nuclear Weapons

North Korea says U.S. has to roll back ‘hostile policy’ before talks

FILE PHOTO: A North Korean flag flies on a mast at the Permanent Mission of North Korea in Geneva October 2, 2014. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – North Korea’s deputy U.N. envoy said on Friday the United States needed to roll back its “hostile policy” toward the country before there could be talks as Washington raised concern that Pyongyang could be producing a chemical used in a nerve agent.

“As everybody knows, the Americans have gestured (toward) dialogue,” North Korea’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Kim In Ryong, told reporters on Friday. “But what is important is not words, but actions.”

“The rolling back of the hostile policy towards DPRK is the prerequisite for solving all the problems in the Korean Peninsula,” he said. “Therefore, the urgent issue to be settled on Korean Peninsula is to put a definite end to the U.S. hostile policy towards DPRK, the root cause of all problems.”

North Korea, also known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), has vowed to develop a missile mounted with a nuclear warhead that can strike the mainland United States, saying the program is necessary to counter U.S. aggression.

U.S. President Donald Trump warned in an interview with Reuters in late April that a “major, major conflict” with North Korea was possible, but said he would prefer a diplomatic outcome to the dispute over its nuclear and missile programs.

Trump later said he would be “honored” to meet the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un, under the right conditions. A U.S. State Department spokesman said the country would have to “cease all its illegal activities and aggressive behavior in the region.”

The U.N. Security Council first imposed sanctions on North Korea in 2006 and has strengthened the measures in response to the country’s five nuclear tests and two long-range rocket launches. Pyongyang is threatening a sixth nuclear test.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley raised concern on Friday about an application by North Korea to patent a process to produce sodium cyanide, which can be used to make the nerve agent Tabun and is also used in the extraction of gold.

“The thought of placing cyanide in the hands of the North Koreans, considering their record on human rights, political prisoners, and assassinations is not only dangerous but defies common sense,” Haley said in a statement.

North Korea submitted the patent application to a U.N. agency, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), for processing. The agency does not grant patents.

U.N. sanctions monitors said they are investigating the case for any violations. Under U.N. sanctions, states are banned from supplying North Korea with sodium cyanide and Pyongyang has to abandon all chemical and biological weapons and programs.

WIPO said in a statement that it has strict procedures to ensure full compliance with U.N. sanctions regimes. It noted that “patent applications are not covered by the provisions of U.N. Security Council Resolutions.”

Haley said: “We urge all U.N. agencies to be transparent and apply the utmost scrutiny when dealing with these types of requests from North Korea and other rogue nations.”

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Leslie Adler)

U.S.: Military solution to North Korea would be ‘tragic on an unbelievable scale’

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis gestures during a press briefing on the campaign to defeat ISIS at the Pentagon in Washington, U.S., May 19, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Phil Stewart and David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Friday that any military solution to the North Korea crisis would be “tragic on an unbelievable scale” and Washington was working internationally to find a diplomatic solution.

North Korea has defied all calls to rein in its nuclear and missile programs, even from China, its lone major ally, calling them legitimate self-defense.

It has been working to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of striking the U.S. mainland, and experts say its test on Sunday of a new missile was another important step toward that aim.

“We are going to continue to work the issue,” Mattis told a Pentagon news conference.

“If this goes to a military solution, it’s going to be tragic on an unbelievable scale. So our effort is to work with the U.N., work with China, work with Japan, work with South Korea to try to find a way out of this situation.”

The remarks were one of the clearest indicators yet that President Donald Trump’s administration will seek to exhaust alternatives before turning to military action to force Pyongyang’s hand.

The United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea to guard against the North Korean threat, has called on China to do more to rein in its neighbor.

Mattis appeared to defend China’s most recent efforts, even as he acknowledged Pyongyang’s march forward.

“They (North Korea) clearly aren’t listening but there appears to be some impact by the Chinese working here. It’s not obviously perfect when they launch a missile,” Mattis said, when asked about Sunday’s launch.

RE-ENTRY CAPABILITY?

South Korea has said the North’s missile program was progressing faster than expected, with Sunday’s test considered successful in flight.

North Korea said the launch tested the capability to carry a “large-size heavy nuclear warhead,” and its ambassador in Beijing has said that Pyongyang would continue such test launches “any time, any place.”

Mattis acknowledged that Pyongyang had likely learned a great deal from the latest test of what U.S. officials say was a KN-17 missile, which was believed to have survived re-entry to some degree.

“They went to a very high apogee and when it came down obviously from that altitude they probably learned a lot from it. But I’m not willing to characterize it beyond that right now,” Mattis said.

David Wright, co-director and senior scientist at the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, the big question was whether North Korea could build a re-entry vehicle for a long-range missile that wouldn’t burn up during re-entry and could keep a warhead from becoming too hot in the process.

“This test in principle gave them a lot of information about this, assuming they had sensors that could send information back during reentry so they could monitor the heat, or they could recover the reentry vehicle and examine it,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman)

North Korea says will have dialogue with U.S. under right conditions: Yonhap

FILE PHOTO - A North Korean flag flies on a mast at the Permanent Mission of North Korea in Geneva October 2, 2014. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

SEOUL (Reuters) – A senior North Korean diplomat who handles relations with the United States said on Saturday Pyongyang would have dialogue with the U.S. administration if conditions were right, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

Choe Son Hui, North Korea’s foreign ministry director general for U.S. affairs, made the comment to reporters in Beijing as she was traveling home from Norway, Yonhap said.

“We’ll have dialogue if the conditions are there,” she told reporters when asked if the North was preparing to hold talks with the Trump administration, according to Yonhap.

When asked if North Korea was also preparing to talk with the new government in South Korea, of liberal President Moon Jae-in, Choe said: “We’ll see.”

The comments by Choe, who is a veteran member of the North’s team of nuclear negotiators, came amid stepped up international efforts to press North Korea and ease tension over its pursuit of nuclear arms.

U.S. President Donald Trump warned in an interview with Reuters in late April that a “major, major conflict” with the North was possible, but he would prefer a diplomatic outcome to the dispute over its nuclear and missile programs.

Trump later said he would be “honored” to meet the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un, under the right conditions.

Choe was in Norway for so-called Track Two talks with former U.S. government officials, according to Japanese media, the latest in a series of such meetings.

A source with knowledge of the latest meeting said at least one former U.S. government official took part but the U.S. administration was not involved.

South Korea’s Moon, elected this week on a platform of a moderate approach to North Korea, has said he would be willing to go to Pyongyang under the right circumstances and said dialogue must be used in parallel with sanctions to resolve the problem over North Korea’s weapons.

North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests in defiance of U.N. and U.S. sanctions and is also developing long-range missiles to deliver atomic weapons.

It says it needs such weapons to defend itself against U.S. aggression.

(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Robert Birsel)

North Korea sends rare letter of protest over new U.S. sanctions

FILE PHOTO - A North Korean flag flies on a mast at the Permanent Mission of North Korea in Geneva October 2, 2014. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

By Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea sent a rare letter of protest to the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday warning that a new package of tougher sanctions would only spur its development of nuclear weapons, North Korea’s state media reported.

The protest was lodged by the recently revived Foreign Affairs Committee of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly, which said the U.S. House of Representatives was “obsessed” with a sense of disapproval and warned it of dire consequences.

“The U.S. House of Representatives should think twice,” the committee said in its letter, a copy of which was published by the KCNA state news agency.

Tension has been high for weeks over North Korea’s nuclear and missile development and fears it will conduct a sixth nuclear test or test-launch another ballistic missile in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation this month to tighten sanctions by targeting North Korea’s shipping industry and companies that do business it.

The U.S. legislation was intended to cut off supplies of cash that help fund North Korea’s nuclear program, and increase pressure to stop human rights abuses such as the use of slave labor, the bill’s sponsor said.

The North’s committee said it would fail.

“As the U.S. House of Representatives enacts more and more of these reckless hostile laws, the DPRK’s efforts to strengthen nuclear deterrents will gather greater pace, beyond anyone’s imagination,” the committee said, referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Last month, North Korea reconvened the Foreign Affairs Committee, which was abolished in the late 1990s, in what analysts saw as an attempt to improve relations with the outside world amid its deepening isolation.

The committee is chaired by Ri Su Yong, a close aide to leader Kim Jong Un and a career diplomat.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Robert Birsel)

U.S. criticizes Russian build-up near Baltic states

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis addresses a news conference during a NATO defence ministers meeting at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, in this file photo dated February 16, 2017. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo

By Phil Stewart and Andrius Sytas

PABRADE TRAINING AREA, Lithuania (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Wednesday that a Russian missile deployment near the Baltic states was “destabilizing”, and officials suggested the United States could deploy a Patriot missile battery in the region for NATO exercises in the summer.

U.S. allies are jittery ahead of war games by Russia and Belarus in September that could involve up to 100,000 troops and include nuclear weapons training — the biggest such exercise since 2013.

The drills could see Russian troops near the borders of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

Russia has also deployed Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, its enclave on the Baltic Sea. It said the deployment was part of routine drills, but U.S. officials worry that it may represent a permanent upgrade.

Asked during a trip to Lithuania about the deployment, Mattis told a news conference: “Any kind of build-up like that is simply destabilizing.”

The United States is ruling out any direct response to the Russian drills or the Iskander deployment.

But at the same time, U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, raised the possibility that a Patriot missile battery could be deployed briefly to the Baltic region during NATO exercises in July that focus on air defense, known as Tobruk Legacy.

The officials stressed that the Patriots, if deployed, would be withdrawn when the exercises were over. That would most likely happen before the Russian drills began, they said.

Mattis declined to comment directly on the possible Patriot deployment to reporters after talks in Vilnius.

“The specific systems that we bring are those that we determine necessary,” Mattis said, saying that NATO capabilities in the region were purely defensive.

BALTIC FEARS

It was Mattis’s first trip to the Baltic states, which fear Russia could attack them in the same way that it annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014. The states are concerned about their lack of air defenses and considering upgrading their military hardware.

Asked about Baltic air defenses on a visit to the Pabrade training ground, Mattis told reporters:

“We will talk to the leaders of each of the nations, and we will work this out in Brussels and we will work together if necessary.

“The reason for the deployment you see right now is the lack of respect for international law by a nation in the region, and so long as the nation shows respect, we would not have to deploy that,” Mattis told reporters, standing in front of a German Leopard tank.

A German-led battalion was deployed to Lithuania this year as part of a NATO effort to deter any Russian aggression.

Asked about any future Patriot deployment, Lithuania’s President Dalia Grybauskaite, standing next to Mattis, said: “We need all necessary means for defense and for deterrence, and that’s what we’ll decide together.”

The scale of this year’s Russian “Zapad” (“West”) maneuvers, which date from Soviet times, when they were first used to test new weapon systems, is one of NATO’s most pressing concerns. Western diplomats say the exercises pose an unusual threat.

But Mattis told reporters: “It’s a routine exercise. I trust it will stay routine.”

Estonian Defence Minister Margus Tsahkna told Reuters last month that NATO governments had intelligence suggesting Moscow may leave Russian soldiers in Belarus once the Zapad 2017 exercises are over, also pointing to public data of Russian railway traffic to Belarus.

Moscow denies any plans to threaten NATO and says it is the U.S.-led alliance that is undermining stability in eastern Europe. It has not said how many troops will take part in Zapad 2017.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Osborn in Moscow; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Kevin Liffey)

North Korea accuses CIA of ‘bio-chemical’ plot against leadership

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves to people attending a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of country's founding father, Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea on Friday accused the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and South Korea’s intelligence service of a plot to attack its “supreme leadership” with a bio-chemical weapon and said such a “pipe-dream” could never succeed.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks, driven by concern that North Korea might conduct its sixth nuclear test or test-launch another ballistic missile in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Reclusive North Korea warned this week that U.S. hostility had brought the region to the brink of nuclear war.

The North’s Ministry of State Security released a statement saying “the last-ditch effort” of U.S. “imperialists” and the South had gone “beyond the limits”.

“The Central Intelligence Agency of the U.S. and the Intelligence Service (IS) of south Korea, hotbed of evils in the world, hatched a vicious plot to hurt the supreme leadership of the DPRK and those acts have been put into the extremely serious phase of implementation after crossing the threshold of the DPRK,” the North’s KCNA news agency quoted the statement as saying, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“A hideous terrorists’ group, which the CIA and the IS infiltrated into the DPRK on the basis of covert and meticulous preparations to commit state-sponsored terrorism against the supreme leadership of the DPRK by use of bio-chemical substance, has been recently detected.”

The U.S. Embassy in Seoul and South Korea’s National Intelligence Service were not immediately available for comment. The U.S. military has said CIA director Mike Pompeo visited South Korea this week and met the NIS chief for discussions.

KCNA said the two intelligence services “ideologically corrupted” and bribed a North Korean surnamed Kim and turned him into “a terrorist full of repugnance and revenge against the supreme leadership of the DPRK”.

“They hatched a plot of letting human scum Kim commit bomb terrorism targeting the supreme leadership during events at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun and at military parade and public procession after his return home,” KCNA said.

“They told him that assassination by use of biochemical substances including radioactive substance and nano poisonous substance is the best method that does not require access to the target, their lethal results will appear after six or twelve months…

“Then they handed him over $20,000 on two occasions and a satellite transmitter-receiver and let him get versed in it.”

North Korea conducted an annual military parade, featuring a display of missiles and overseen by top leader Kim Jong Un and his right-hand men on April 15 and then a large, live-fire artillery drill 10 days later.

KCNA, which often carries shrill, bellicose threats against the United States, gave lengthy details about the alleged plot but said it could never be accomplished.

“Criminals going hell-bent to realize such a pipe dream cannot survive on this land even a moment,” it said.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday that Washington was working on more sanctions against North Korea if it takes steps that merit a new response. He also warned other countries their firms could face so-called secondary sanctions for doing illicit business with Pyongyang.

Tillerson said the Trump administration had been “leaning hard into China … to test their willingness to use their influence, their engagement with the regime”.

Two women accused of killing the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim with a chemical weapon appeared in court in Malaysia last month.

They allegedly smeared the man’s face with the toxic VX nerve agent, a chemical described by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction, at Kuala Lumpur airport on Feb. 13.

(Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Robert Birsel)

As U.S. and China find common ground on North Korea, is Russia the wild card?

FILE PHOTO: The Friendship and the Broken bridges over the Yalu River connecting the North Korean town of Sinuiju and Dandong in China's Liaoning province, April 16, 2017. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo

By James Pearson and Alexei Chernyshev

SEOUL/VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) – When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent Lunar New Year greetings this year, the first card went to Russian President Vladimir Putin, ahead of leaders from China and other allies of the isolated country, according to its official news agency.

Some academics who study North Korea argue Kim could be looking for Russia to ease any pain if China, which accounts for about 90 percent of North Korea’s trade, steps up sanctions against the isolated country as part of moves to deter its nuclear and missile programs.

U.S. President Donald Trump lavished praise on Chinese President Xi Jinping last week for Beijing’s assistance in trying to rein in Pyongyang. A day later, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pressed the United Nations Security Council to impose more sanctions to further isolate Pyongyang.

There is no sign of any sustainable increase in trade between Russia and North Korea, but business and transport links between the two are getting busier.

A new ferry service starting next week will move up to 200 passengers and 1,000 tonnes of cargo six times a month between North Korea and the Russian port of Vladivostok.

Shipping data on Thomson Reuters Eikon shows there has been a recent steady flow of oil tanker traffic from Vladivostok into North Korean east coast ports.

Last Thursday, five North Korean-flagged oil tankers had loaded up at Vladivostok-area ports and identified North Korean ports as their destination. It was not known what products they were carrying.

Earlier this year, Russian government officials visited Pyongyang to discuss more cooperation in rail transport, according to media reports. A Russian-built railway link between the Russian eastern border town of Khasan and the North Korean port of Rajin has been used to carry some coal, metals and various oil products.

“North Korea does not care about China’s pressure or sanctions because there is Russia next door,” said Leonid Petrov, a North Korea expert at Australia National University.

“Pyongyang has been playing off Beijing and Moscow for half a century, letting them compete for the right to aid and influence North Korea.”

Russia, especially Vladivostok, is also home to one of the largest overseas communities of North Koreans in the world, and they send home tens of thousands of dollars in much-needed hard currency each month.

Speaking at the United Nations last week, Tillerson called on states to sever diplomatic and financial ties with Pyongyang and suspend the flow of North Korean guest workers. The Security Council has not yet agreed on any course of action.

While Russia has not indicated it will oppose U.N. sanctions or seek to dilute them, its ties with the United States are fraught, which could complicate its joining any U.S.-led initiative on North Korea.

Trump and Putin spoke in a telephone call on Tuesday and discussed North Korea, among other issues, both sides said. There was no word of any agreement.

“LOYAL PARTNER”

Samuel Ramani, a Russia expert at Oxford University, said support for the Pyongyang regime could bring economic benefits for Moscow. It would demonstrate Russia was “a loyal partner to anti-Western regimes facing international isolation and sanctions”, he said.

“As Russia has close economic links with other countries at odds with the West, like Iran, Venezuela and Syria, this symbolic dimension of the Russia-North Korea relationship has strategic significance.”

The United States is calling for an embargo in oil sales to North Korea, which imports all its fuel needs. China, North Korea’s main supplier, is unlikely to agree because that would be potentially destabilizing for the Pyongyang regime, but it may impose curbs on the trade, experts say.

China exports about 500,000 tonnes of crude and 270,000 tonnes of products each year, oil industry sources in China say. Russia, the other major supplier of oil to North Korea, exported about 36,000 tonnes of oil products in 2015, the latest year for which figures are available, according to U.N. data.

Russia has already taken over the supply of jet fuel to North Korea after China halted exports two years ago, according to the industry sources in China.

Russia is also the source of foreign exchange for North Korea, mostly from Vladivostok.

The city of 600,000 people, just about 100 km (60 miles) from the border with North Korea, is home to thousands of North Koreans who mainly work on construction or do home renovations. A city web site advertises “Korean Professional Contractors” and says they work “Cheaply and Fast”.

One North Korean man, who works as a handyman, told Reuters he was obliged to hand over a portion of his income – $500 – to the North Korean state each month. Thin and in his 30s, he did not disclose his monthly income, but said he charged 4,000 roubles (about $70) for a day’s labor.

The man said he had worked in Russia for 11 years, leaving his wife and daughter back home whom he only saw on rare visits.

Like all North Koreans, he wore a badge on his lapel bearing the portrait of late North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung.

“It’s better here than in North Korea,” said the man, who did not want to be named.  “It’s a very difficult life there. Here you can make money.”

But the most symbolic upturn in ties between Russia and North Korea is the start of regular trips of the Mangyongbong ferry from Monday between Vladivostok and the North Korean town of Rajin.

Vladimir Baranov, the head of Vladivostok-based Investstroitrest company, told Reuters his company had chartered the Mangyongbong and would be the general agent for the ferry route. The aging boat used to ferry tourists between Japan and North Korea, but Tokyo banned its visits in 2006 as part of sanctions against Pyongyang.

An editorial in Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper described the ferry service to Russia as “a move that puts a damper on international efforts to strengthen the encirclement of North Korea aimed at halting its nuclear and missile development.”

Still, despite the differences with the United States and the existing links with North Korea, experts say Russia is unlikely to sharp increase trade with Pyongyang because of its low foreign exchange reserves and general unreliability.

“All trade with North Korea has to be subsidized,” said Andrei Lankov, a Russian North Korea expert at Seoul’s Kookmin University. “I do not see the Russian government spending its dwindling currency reserves to support the regime they despise and see as incurably ungrateful, and also prone to risky adventurism”.

(Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova, Natalia Chumakova, Gleb Gorodyankin, Alexander Winning and Andrew Osborn in Moscow, Steve Holland in Washington,; Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Chen Aizhu and Josephine Mason in Beijing; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

North Korea says U.S. bomber flights push peninsula to brink of nuclear war

Kim Jong Un stands on the conning tower of a submarine during his inspection of the Korean People's Army Naval Unit 167 in this undated photo released June 16, 2014. REUTERS/KCNA

By Ju-min Park and Ben Blanchard

SEOUL/BEIJING (Reuters) – North Korea accused the United States on Tuesday of pushing the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war after a pair of strategic U.S. bombers flew training drills with the South Korean and Japanese air forces in another show of strength.

The two supersonic B-1B Lancer bombers were deployed amid rising tensions over North Korea’s pursuit of its nuclear and missile programmes in defiance of U.N. sanctions and pressure from the United States.

The flight of the two bombers on Monday came as U.S. President Donald Trump said he would be “honoured” to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the right circumstances, and as his CIA director landed in South Korea for talks.

South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun told a briefing in Seoul that Monday’s joint drill was conducted to deter provocations by the North.

North Korea said the bombers conducted “a nuclear bomb dropping drill against major objects” in its territory at a time when Trump and “other U.S. warmongers are crying out for making a preemptive nuclear strike” on the North.

“The reckless military provocation is pushing the situation on the Korean peninsula closer to the brink of nuclear war,” the North’s official KCNA news agency said on Tuesday.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been high for weeks, driven by concerns that the North might conduct its sixth nuclear test in defiance of pressure from the United States and Pyongyang’s sole major ally, China.

The U.S. military’s THAAD anti-missile defence system has reached initial operational capacity in South Korea, U.S. officials told Reuters, although they cautioned that it would not be fully operational for some months.

China has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the system, whose powerful radar it fears could reach inside Chinese territory. Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang again denounced THAAD on Tuesday.

“We will resolutely take necessary measures to defend our interests,” Geng said, without elaborating.

Asked about Trump’s suggestion he could meet Kim, Geng said China had noted U.S. comments that it wanted to use peaceful means to resolve the issue. Trump has been recently been full of praise of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s efforts to rein in its neighbour.

“China has always believed that using peaceful means via dialogue and consultation to resolve the peninsula’s nuclear issue is the only realistic, feasible means to achieve denuclearization of the peninsula and maintain peace and stability there, and is the only correct choice,” Geng told a daily news briefing.

It was widely feared North Korea could conduct its sixth nuclear test on or around April 15 to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of the North’s founding leader, Kim Il Sung, or on April 25 to coincide with the 85th anniversary of the foundation of its Korean People’s Army.

The North has conducted such tests or missile launches to mark significant events in the past.

Instead, North Korea conducted an annual military parade, featuring a display of missiles on April 15 and then a large, live-fire artillery drill 10 days later.

“VIGILANCE, READINESS”

Acting South Korean president Hwang Kyo-ahn called for stronger vigilance because of continuing provocation by North Korea and for countries such as China to increase pressure on the North.

The U.S. military said Mike Pompeo, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, visited South Korea and conducted detailed security discussions with his South Korean counterpart Lee Byung-ho and also visited Yeonpyeong island, which was bombed by North Korea in 2010.

Trump drew criticism in Washington on Monday when he said he would be “honoured” to meet North Korea’s young leader.

“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honoured to do it,” Trump told Bloomberg News.

Trump did not say what conditions would be needed for such a meeting to occur or when it could happen.

“Clearly conditions are not there right now,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.

Trump warned in an interview with Reuters on Thursday that a “major, major conflict” with North Korea was possible, while China said last week the situation on the Korean peninsula could escalate or slip out of control.

In a show of force, the United States has already sent an aircraft carrier strike group, led by the USS Carl Vinson, to waters off the Korean peninsula to conduct drills with South Korea and Japan.

North Korea test-launched a missile on Saturday that appeared to have failed within minutes, its fourth successive failed launch since March. It has conducted two nuclear tests and a series of missile-related activities at an unprecedented pace since the beginning of last year.

The North is technically still at war with the South after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty, and regularly threatens to destroy the United States, Japan and South Korea.

(Writing by Jack Kim; Editing by Paul Tait and Nick Macfie)

Defiant North Korea hints at nuclear tests to boost force ‘to the maximum’

People watch a TV broadcasting of a news report on North Korea's missile launch, at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea.

By Soyoung Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea suggested on Monday it will continue its nuclear weapons tests, saying it will bolster its nuclear force “to the maximum” in a “consecutive and successive way at any moment” in the face of what it calls U.S. aggression and hysteria.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said a “major, major conflict” with North Korea is possible over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, while China said last week the situation on the Korean peninsula could escalate or slip out of control.

In a show of force, the United States has sent the nuclear-powered USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group to waters off the Korean peninsula to join drills with South Korea to counter a series of threats of destruction from North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

“Now that the U.S. is kicking up the overall racket for sanctions and pressure against the DPRK, pursuant to its new DPRK policy called ‘maximum pressure and engagement’, the DPRK will speed up at the maximum pace the measure for bolstering its nuclear deterrence,” a spokesman for North Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement carried by its official KCNA news agency.

North Korea’s “measures for bolstering the nuclear force to the maximum will be taken in a consecutive and successive way at any moment and any place decided by its supreme leadership,” the spokesman said.

Reclusive North Korea has carried out five nuclear tests and a series of missile tests in defiance of U.N. Security Council and unilateral resolutions. It has been conducting such tests at an unprecedented rate and is believed to have made progress in developing intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles.

It test-launched a missile on Saturday which Washington and Seoul said was unsuccessful, but which nevertheless drew widespread international condemnation.

‘TOP PRIORITY’

South Korea said the United States had reaffirmed it would shoulder the cost of deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system to counter the North Korean threat, days after Trump said Seoul should pay for the $1 billion battery.

In a telephone call on Sunday, Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, reassured his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan-jin, that the U.S. alliance with South Korea was its top priority in the Asia-Pacific region, the South’s presidential office said.

Trump, asked about his message to North Korea after the latest missile test, told reporters: “You’ll soon find out,” but did not elaborate on what the U.S. response would be.

Trump stepped up his outreach to allies in Asia over the weekend to discuss the North Korean threat and make sure all are “on the same page” if action is needed, a top White House official said.

“There is nothing right now facing this country and facing the region that is a bigger threat than what is happening in North Korea,” White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told ABC’s “This Week.”

The THAAD deployment has drawn protests from China, which says the powerful radar that can penetrate its territory will undermine regional security, and from residents of the area in which it is being deployed, worried they will be a target for North Korean missiles.

The United States is seeking more help from China, the North’s major ally, to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile development. Trump, in the Reuters interview, praised Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping as a “good man”.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks over fears the North may conduct a long-range missile test, or its sixth nuclear test, around the time of the April 15 anniversary of its state founder’s birth.

North Korea, technically still at war with the South after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty, regularly threatens to destroy the United States, Japan and South Korea and has said before it will pursue its nuclear and missile programs to counter perceived U.S. aggression.

(Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Robert Birsel)

North Korea test-fires ballistic missile in defiance of world pressure

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un watches a military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) made available on April 26, 2017. KCNA/Handout via REUTERS

By Jack Kim and Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile on Saturday shortly after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that failure to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs could lead to “catastrophic consequences”.

U.S. and South Korean officials said the test, from an area north of the North Korean capital, appeared to have failed, in what would be the North’s fourth straight unsuccessful missile test since March.

The test came as the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group arrived in waters near the Korean peninsula, where it began exercises with the South Korean navy on Saturday, about 12 hours after the failed launch, a South Korean navy official said.

Tillerson, in a U.N. Security Council meeting on North Korea on Friday, repeated the Trump administration’s position that all options were on the table if Pyongyang persisted with its nuclear and missile development.

“The threat of a nuclear attack on Seoul, or Tokyo, is real, and it’s only a matter of time before North Korea develops the capability to strike the U.S. mainland,” Tillerson said.

“Failing to act now on the most pressing security issue in the world may bring catastrophic consequences.”

U.S. President Donald Trump said the launch was an affront to China, the North’s sole main ally.

“North Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!,” Trump said in a post on Twitter after the launch.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the U.N. meeting it was not only up to China to solve the North Korean problem.

“The key to solving the nuclear issue on the peninsula does not lie in the hands of the Chinese side,” Wang said.

In a commentary on Saturday, China’s official Xinhua news agency said both North Korea and the United States needed to tread cautiously.

“If both sides fail to make such necessary concessions, then not only will the two countries, but the whole region and the whole world end up paying a heavy price for a possible confrontation.”

Trump, in an interview with Reuters on Thursday, praised Chinese leader Xi Jinping for “trying very hard” on North Korea but warned a “major, major conflict” was possible.

The North has been conducting missile and nuclear weapons related activities at an unprecedented rate and is believed to have made progress in developing intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks over fears the North may conduct a long-range missile test, or its sixth nuclear test, around the time of the April 15 anniversary of its state founder’s birth.

JAPAN PROTESTS

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe condemned the test as a grave threat to the international order.

“I urged Russia to play a constructive role in dealing with North Korea,” Abe told reporters in London. “Japan is watching how China will act in regard to North Korea.”

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the North Koreans had probably tested a medium-range missile known as a KN-17 and it appeared to have broken up within minutes of taking off.

The South Korean military said the missile reached an altitude of 71 km (44 miles) before disintegrating. It said the launch was a clear violation of U.N. resolutions and warned the North not to act rashly.

With North Korea acting in defiance of the pressure, the United States could conduct new naval drills and deploy more ships and aircraft in the region, a U.S. official told Reuters.

The dispatch of Carl Vinson to the waters off the Korean peninsula is a “reckless action of the war maniacs aimed at an extremely dangerous nuclear war,” the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, said in a commentary on Saturday.

Inter-continental ballistic rockets will fly into the United States “if the U.S. shows any slight sign of provocation,” the newspaper said.

MORE SANCTIONS MOOTED

Kim Dong-yub, an expert at Kyungnam University’s Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, said North Korea might have got the data it wanted with the missile’s short flight, then blown it up in a bid to limit the anger of China, which warned Pyongyang against further provocation.

North Korea rattled world powers in February when it successfully launched a new intermediate-range ballistic missile that it said could carry a nuclear weapon. It also successfully tested ballistic missiles on March 6.

It is not clear what has caused the series of failed missile tests since then.

The Trump administration could respond to the test by speeding up its plans for new U.S. sanctions, including possible measures against specific North Korean and Chinese entities, said the U.S. official, who declined to be identified.

“Something that’s ready to go could be taken from the larger package and expedited,” said the official.

The U.N. Security Council is likely to start discussing a statement to condemn the missile launch, said diplomats.

But condemnations and sanctions resolutions since 2006, when North Korea conducted its first nuclear test, have done little to impede its push for ballistic missiles and nuclear arms.

The South Korean politician expected to win a May 9 presidential election, Moon Jae-in, called the test an “exercise in futility”.

“We urge again the Kim Jong Un regime to immediately stop reckless provocative acts and choose the path to cooperate with the international community,” Park Kwang-on, a spokesman for Moon, said in a statement, referring to the North Korean leader.

Moon has advocated a more moderate policy on the North and been critical of the deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system in the South intended to counter North Korea’s missile threat, which China also strongly objects to.

(This story has been refiled to clarify timing of naval exercise in paragraph three.)

(Additional reporting by Soyoung Kim in SEOUL, Idrees Ali, David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick in WASHINGTON, Tim Kelly and Nobuhiro Kubo in TOKYO, John Ruwitch in SHANGHAI and Michelle Nichols and Lesley Wroughton at the UNITED NATIONS, William James and Alistair Smout in LONDON; Editing Lincoln Feast and Robert Birsel)