Tag Archives: South Korea

U.S. flies bombers over Korean peninsula after North Korea missile test

One of two U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers flies a 10-hour mission from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, into Japanese airspace and over the Korean Peninsula,

By James Pearson and Michelle Nichols

SEOUL/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The United States flew two supersonic B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force on Sunday and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said China, Japan and South Korea needed to do more after Pyongyang’s latest missile tests.

North Korea said it conducted another successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) on Friday that proved its ability to strike America’s mainland, drawing a sharp warning from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Twitter on Sunday that the United States was “done talking” about North Korea, which was “not only a U.S. problem.”

“China is aware they must act,” Haley said, urging Japan and South Korea to increase pressure and calling for an international solution.

China, the North’s main ally, said it opposed North Korea’s missile launches, which it said violate UN Security Council resolutions designed to curb Pyongyang’s banned nuclear and missile programs.

“At the same time, China hopes all parties act with caution, to prevent tensions from continuing to escalate,” China’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

Early in his presidency, Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and had expressed hope Beijing would use its economic clout to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

But on Saturday, Trump said on Twitter that he was “very disappointed in China” which he said profits from trade with the United States but does “NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue,” he said.

 

DIRECT RESPONSE

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally supervised the midnight test launch of the missile on Friday night and said it was a “stern warning” for the United States that it would not be safe from destruction if it tries to attack, the North’s official KCNA news agency said.

North Korea’s state television broadcast pictures of the launch, showing the missile lifting off in a fiery blast in darkness and Kim cheering with military aides.

The missile test came a day after the U.S. Senate approved a package of sanctions against North Korea, Russia and Iran.

The B-1B flight was a response to the missile test and the July 3 launch of the “Hwasong-14” rocket, the Pentagon said. The bombers took off from a U.S. air base in Guam, and were joined by Japanese and South Korean fighter jets during the exercise, according to the statement.

“North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability,” Pacific Air Forces commander General Terrence J. O’Shaughnessy said in a statement.

“If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing.”

Also on Sunday, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency announced the United States had successfully shot down a medium-range missile in the latest test of its THAAD missile defense program which is designed to protect the country against potential threats from countries such as North Korea and Iran.

The test was planned well before the rising tensions with North Korea and involved a medium-range missile, not the long-range types being tested by the North Koreans.

 

FAR REACH

The Hwasong-14, named after the Korean word for Mars, reached an altitude of 3,724.9 km (2,314.6 miles) and flew 998 km (620 miles)for 47 minutes and 12 seconds before landing in the waters off the Korean peninsula’s east coast, KCNA said.

Western experts said calculations based on that flight data and estimates from the U.S., Japanese and South Korean militaries showed the missile could have been capable of going as far into the United States as Denver and Chicago.

David Wright of the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists wrote in a blog post that if it had flown on a standard trajectory, the missile would have had a range of 10,400 km (6,500 miles).

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a leading Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said she saw the test as “a clear and present danger to the United States.”

“I think the only solution is a diplomatic one. I’m very disappointed in China’s response, that it has not been firmer or more helpful,” Feinstein told CBS television’s “Face the Nation,” urging the administration to begin talks with the North.

U.S. intelligence officials assess that even if North Korea does develop a reliable, nuclear-capable ICBM, which some say it remains several steps short of doing, the weapon would be almost useless except to deter the conventional attacks that Kim fears.

Intelligence experts have concluded that Kim will not abandon his pursuit of a deliverable nuclear weapon.

“Kim is determined to secure international recognition of the North as a nuclear armed state, for the purposes of security, prestige, and political legitimacy,” says the National Intelligence Council’s January Global Trends report.

 

(Additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch, Susan Cornwell, John Walcott and Roberta Rampton in Washington; Editing by Sam Holmes and Phil Berlowitz)

 

Fairy tales overcome nightmares at South Korea’s militarized border town

Visitors are seen at a shopping mall near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas in Paju, South Korea, July 16, 2017. Picture taken on July 16, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

By Hyunjoo Jin and Haejin Choi

SEOUL (Reuters) – A half-hour’s drive north of Seoul, along a highway lined with barbed wire, lie two shopping malls the size of several football stadiums, a stone’s throw from the world’s most militarized border.

The malls are in the city of Paju, gateway to the U.N. truce village of Panmunjom, where military officers from the combatants of the 1950-53 Korean war discuss armistice matters — when the two sides are on speaking terms, which they aren’t these days.

“Fairy tales come true in Paju”, is the advertising lure from the Korean Tourism Board. But it was nightmares that were all too true here during the Korean war, when Paju featured some of its fiercest battles. Paju is home to the country’s only “enemy’s cemetery”, where the remains of Chinese and North Korean soldiers are buried.

That’s all but forgotten history now. On the rooftop of the Lotte Premium Outlet, children and their parents can view North Korea across the Imjin River through binoculars. The mall also features a merry-go-round, cinema, and a mini-train.

At Shinsegae Paju Premium Outlet, about a dozen children jump and scream around a fountain inside the mall on a sizzling, July summer day. Just a couple miles away is a village modeled after France’s tourism center of Provence, where restaurants, bakeries and clothing shops are decorated like a children’s playbook.

Elsewhere in Paju, kids carved wood to make Pinocchio dolls at a museum, while adults tasted wine made of meoru, a Korean wild grape, at a farm.

Paju, indeed, shows little signs of the tensions that have arisen since North Korea marked the U.S. July 4th holiday with a successful launch of what it said was an intercontinental ballistic missile. The missile test prompted the United States and South Korea this month to conduct air force bomber exercises in the skies near here.

LITTERING LAND MINES

But at Paju’s Provence Village, Kim Ki-deok, a 41-year-old office worker from south of Seoul and father of a 4-year-old boy, said he doesn’t feel any more danger from being close to the border.

“If North Korea really wants, they can shoot missiles far away,” said Kim. “I feel refreshed and would like to come here again.”

The sense of insouciance can even be seen at the U.S. military’s Camp Bonifas on the outskirts of town, home to a three-hole golf course that Sports Illustrated once called the “world most dangerous golf course” because of the Korean War vintage land mines littering the area.

The Korean War, in which the United States fought alongside South Korea and China with the North, ended in a truce that has yet to be replaced by a peace agreement and has left the two sides technically at war.

It means South Koreans have long grown accustomed to living in a doomsday scenario, one that includes up to 10,000 artillery guns pointed toward the South and capable at any moment, in the words of North Korea’s propaganda machine, of turning Seoul into a “sea of fire” and a “pile of ashes.”

For 30-year-old Park Chol-min, it’s nothing more than empty threats.

“It’s just a show or performance. I think North Korea has a lot more to lose than to gain by turning Seoul into a sea of fire,” said the video game producer from Seoul, visiting the Shinsegae mall with his girlfriend to buy her a birthday gift.

DEFENSE MECHANISM

Paju stepped up North Korea-related tourism in the 2000s, when liberal governments launched a “Sunshine Policy” of engagement with North Korea. Foreigners and locals flocked to Panmunjom to see stony-faced North Korean soldiers on guard and an underground tunnel built by the North, and to Imjingak, which houses the Bridge of Freedom, where prisoners of war were traded at the end of the war.

The tourism push took a huge leap late in 2011, when two massive premium outlets run by South Korean retail giants Shinsegae and Lotte opened. More than 12 million visitors went to the two malls last year — more than Seoul’s population of 10 million.

It was not long after the malls opened, though, when North Korea dramatically stepped up the pace of missile and nuclear tests under Kim Jong Un, who took power in Pyongyang when his father Kim Jong-il died in December 2011.

“The tests have not dented visitor interest at all,” said a Paju city official in charge of tourism, who asked not to be named. “It has become just part of a daily life, although it is sad to say so.”

Normalizing the North Korean threat is part of a “defense mechanism” for South Koreans, says Kwak Keum-joo, a psychology professor at Seoul National University.

“I feel anxious about North Korea when I travel overseas. Once I return to Korea, I forget it,” Kwak said.

That’s not so easy for 74-year-old Woo Jong-il, who lives in a small village of Manu-ri, just south of the Imjin river that divides the two Koreas.

Woo built a bunker in his backyard, one of several residents in Manu-ri who did so in the early 1970s, when bullets fired from North Korea wounded several in his village and damaged a house next door.

“I don’t think this is obsolete even now,” he said, showing a visitor around a dark basement shelter just big enough to accommodate his seven family members.

“I feel anxious. How can I not be? We are at the front so we can be victims. If the relationship with the North worsens anytime, this bunker makes me feel safe.”

(Additional reporting by Heekyong Yang,; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Bill Tarrant)

No Korean military talks after North snubs South’s call

A concrete border is seen as a South Korean soldier stands guard at the truce village of Panmunjom, South Korea July 19, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s proposed military talks aimed at easing tension between the two Koreas planned for Friday failed to happen after the North snubbed the call, a setback for new President Moon Jae-in’s hopes for dialogue.

The North has remained silent on the South Korean proposal, made on Monday, for talks on ways to avoid hostilities along their heavily fortified border.

Moon took office in May pledging to engage the North in dialogue, as well as to bring pressure on it to impede its nuclear and missile programs.

The proposal for talks came after the North said it conducted its first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile on July 4, and said it had mastered the technology to mount a nuclear warhead on it.

South Korean defense ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun told a briefing the military talks proposed for Friday were practically impossible as the North had not responded.

“It is an urgent needed task for peace and stability on the Korean peninsula to restore dialogue in the military area and to ease military tension between the South and the North,” he said.

Moon said the proposal for talks still stood and he urged the North to respond.

It was the first formal overture by South Korea since cross-border ties broke down early last year under the government of Moon’s predecessor, who imposed unilateral sanctions on the North for its nuclear tests and missile launches.

The North has conducted its fourth and fifth nuclear tests and a quick succession of missile-related activities since the beginning of 2016, after leader Kim Jong Un had pledged to improve ties with the South in a New Year’s address.

The South had proposed talks to discuss ways to end activities on the border that have fueled tension.

By that, South Korea usually refers to loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts by both sides, while North Korea wants an end to joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises.

(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Michael Perry, Robert Birsel)

North Korea conducts public executions for theft, watching South Korea media: report

A graphic showing suspected killing sites in North Korea is seen in a report compiled by Transitional Justice Working Group, during an interview with a researcher from the group in Seoul, South Korea, July 19, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

By Christine Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea carries out public executions on river banks and at school grounds and marketplaces for charges such as stealing copper from factory machines, distributing media from South Korea and prostitution, a report issued on Wednesday said.

The report, by a Seoul-based non-government group, said the often extra-judicial decisions for public executions are frequently influenced by “bad” family background or a government campaign to discourage certain behavior.

The Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG) said its report was based on interviews with 375 North Korean defectors from the isolated state over a period of two years.

Reuters could not independently verify the testimony of defectors in the report. The TJWG is made up of human rights activists and researchers and is led by Lee Younghwan, who has worked as an advocate for human rights in North Korea.

It receives most of its funding from the U.S.-based National Endowment for Democracy, which in turn is funded by the U.S. Congress.

The TJWG report aims to document the locations of public killings and mass burials, which it says had not been done previously, to support an international push to hold to account those who commit what it describes as crimes against humanity.

“The maps and the accompanying testimonies create a picture of the scale of the abuses that have taken place over decades,” the group said.

North Korea rejects charges of human rights abuses, saying its citizens enjoy protection under the constitution and accuses the United States of being the world’s worst rights violator.

However, the North has faced an unprecedented push to hold the regime and its leader, Kim Jong Un, accountable for a wide range of rights abuses since a landmark 2014 report by a United Nations commission.

U.N. member countries urged the Security Council in 2014 to consider referring North Korea and its leader to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity, as alleged in a Commission of Inquiry report.

The commission detailed abuses including large prison camps, systematic torture, starvation and executions comparable to Nazi-era atrocities, and linked the activities to the North’s leadership.

North Korea has rejected that inquiry’s findings and the push to bring the North to a tribunal remains stalled due in part to objections by China and Russia, which hold veto powers at the U.N. Security Council.

TJWG said its project to map the locations of mass graves and executions has the potential to contribute to documentation that could back the push for accountability and future efforts to bring the North to justice.

It said executions are carried out in prison camps to incite fear and intimidation among potential escapees, and public executions are carried out for seemingly minor crimes, including the theft of farm produce such as corn and rice.

Stealing electric cables and other commodities from factories to sell them and distribution of South Korean-produced media are also subject to executions, which are most commonly administered by shooting, it said.

Testimonies also showed people can be beaten to death, with one interviewee saying: “Some crimes were considered not worth wasting bullets on.”

Government officials were executed on corruption and espionage charges, and bureaucrats from other regions would be made to watch “as a deterrence tactic”, the report said.

Defectors from the North have previously testified to having witnessed public executions and rights abuses at detention facilities.

(Reporting by Christine Kim; Editing by Paul Tait)

South Korea’s new government proposes military talks with North Korea

A South Korean security guard stands guard on an empty road which leads to the Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC) at the South's CIQ (Customs, Immigration and Quarantine), just south of the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, in Paju, South Korea, February 11, 2016. The Korean characters on the gateway reads "Inter-Korean Transit Office".

By Christine Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea on Monday proposed military talks with North Korea, the first formal overture to Pyongyang by the government of President Moon Jae-in, to discuss ways to avoid hostile acts near the heavily militarized border.

There was no immediate response by the North to the proposal for talks later this week. The two sides technically remain at war but Moon, who came to power in May, has pledged to engage the North in dialogue as well as bring pressure to impede its nuclear and missile programs.

The offer comes after the North claimed to have conducted the first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) earlier this month, and said it had mastered the technology to mount a nuclear warhead on the missile. South Korea and the United States, its main ally, dispute the claim.

“Talks and cooperation between the two Koreas to ease tension and bring about peace on the Korean peninsula will be instrumental for pushing forth a mutual, virtuous cycle for inter-Korea relations and North Korea’s nuclear problem,” the South’s Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon told a news briefing.

The South Korean defense ministry proposed talks with the North on July 21 at Tongilgak to stop all activities that fuel tension at the military demarcation line.

Tongilgak is a North Korean building at the Panmunjom truce village on the border used for previous inter-Korea talks. The last such talks were held in December 2015.

Cho also urged the restoration of military and government hotlines across the border, which had been cut by the North last year in response to the South imposing economic sanctions after a nuclear test by Pyongyang. In all, the North has conducted five nuclear tests and numerous missile tests.

The South also proposed separate talks by the rival states’ Red Cross organizations to resume a humanitarian project to reunite families separated during the 1950-53 Korean War in closely supervised events held over a few days.

The South Korean Red Cross suggested talks be held on Aug. 1, with possible reunions over the Korean thanksgiving Chuseok holiday, which falls in October this year.

The last such reunions were held in October 2015 during the government of Moon’s predecessor under a futile push for reconciliation following a sharp increase in tension over border incidents involving a landmine blast and artillery fire.

 

BEIJING IN FAVOR

China, which has close ties to Pyongyang despite Beijing’s anger over North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests, welcomed the proposal, saying cooperation and reconciliation between the two Koreas was good for everyone and could help ease tensions.

“We hope that North and South Korea can work hard to go in a positive direction and create conditions to break the deadlock and resume dialogue and consultation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a daily news briefing.

The proposals come after Moon said at the G20 summit in Hamburg earlier this month that he was in favor of dialogue with the North despite the “nuclear provocation” of its latest missile test.

When Moon visited Washington after being elected president, he and U.S. President Donald Trump said they were open to renewed dialogue with North Korea but only under circumstances that would lead to Pyongyang giving up its weapons programs.

“The fact that we wish to take on a leading role in resolving this (North Korean) issue has already been understood at the summit with the United States and the Group of 20 summit meetings,” Cho said on Monday.

In the proposal for talks, South Korea did not elaborate on the meaning of hostile military activities, which varies between the two Koreas. South Korea usually refers to loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts by both sides, while the North wants a halt to routine joint U.S.-South Korea military drills.

Moon suggested earlier this month hostile military activities at the border be ended on July 27, the anniversary of the 1953 armistice agreement that ended the Korean War. Since no truce was agreed, the two sides remain technically at war.

When asked if South Korea was willing to “be flexible” on military drills with the United States should North Korea be open to talks, Cho said the government had not discussed the matter specifically.

Pyongyang has repeatedly said it refuses to engage in all talks with the South unless Seoul turns over 12 waitresses who defected to the South last year after leaving a restaurant run by the North in China.

North Korea says the South abducted the 12 waitresses and the restaurant manager and has demanded their return, but the South has said the group decided to defect of its own free will. Cho said this matter is not included on the talks agenda.

In an act to rein in the North, the United States is preparing new sanctions on Chinese banks and firms doing business with Pyongyang possibly within weeks, two senior U.S. officials said last week.

 

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

 

Two U.S. bombers hold firing drills with South Korean forces

U.S. B-1B Lancer flies over South Korea during a joint live-fire drill in this handout picture provided by South Korean Air Force and relased by Yonhap on July 8, 2017. South Korean Air Force/Yonhap via REUTERS

SEOUL (Reuters) – Two U.S. supersonic bombers conducted live-fire drills on Saturday in South Korea in a show of force following North Korea’s test-launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the South’s military said.

The pair of B-1B Lancer strategic bombers flew from a U.S. base on Guam and were joined by U.S. and South Korean jet fighters to conduct the simulated destruction of an enemy ballistic missile launcher and underground facilities, the South’s air force said.

North Korea announced on Tuesday it successfully test-launched an ICBM, saying the missile was capable of carrying a large and heavy nuclear warhead.

Some experts believe the missile has the range to reach Alaska and Hawaii and the test signaled a significant advance in the North’s declared intent to build a nuclear-tipped missile that can hit the U.S. mainland.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said the test indicated a quicker than expected pace of the North’s ICBM program.

The B-1B bombers conducted the live-fire exercise at a range in South Korea’s eastern Gangwon province, dropping weapons in a simulated attack on a missile launcher, the South Korean air force said in a statement.

South Korean and U.S. fighter jets conducted precision strike drills aimed at attacking enemy targets hidden underground, it said.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said the bombers then flew west, hugging the heavily fortified Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) border between the two Koreas, before leaving South Korean airspace.

The drill follows a joint artillery and missile exercise by South Korean and U.S. forces a day after the North’s ICBM test.

TRUMP WARNING

Despite the sabre-rattling, the United States and South Korea have said they are committed to resolving the crisis over the North’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile peacefully.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Friday in Hamburg, where the leaders of G20 nations are meeting, there would not be many good options left on North Korea if the peaceful pressure campaign failed.

U.S. President Donald Trump vowed on Thursday to confront the North “very strongly” and said Washington was considering “severe things” for the isolated state following the ICBM test.

The United States, Japan and South Korea agreed on Friday to push for a quick U.N. Security Council resolution to put new sanctions on North Korea.

On the sidelines of the G20 summit, Trump, Moon and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed to apply “maximum pressure” to counter the North nuclear threat.

North Korea has hailed the ICBM test as marking the completion of is strategic weapons capability that it says includes atomic and hydrogen bombs.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited a mausoleum honouring state founder Kim Il Sun on Saturday, the anniversary of his grandfather’s death, the North’s official KCNA news agency reported.

He was joined by military officials who contributed to the success of the ICBM test, the news agency said.

(Reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Jack Kim, Robert Birsel)

Exclusive: U.S. plans to test THAAD missile defenses as North Korea tensions mount

A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor is seen in Seongju, South Korea, June 13, 2017. Picture taken on June 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

By Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States plans to carry out a new test of its THAAD missile defense system against an intermediate-range ballistic missile in the coming days, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday, as tensions with North Korea climb.

Despite being planned months ago, the U.S. missile defense test will gain significance in the wake of North Korea’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on July 4 that has heightened concerns about the threat from Pyongyang.

The test will be the first of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) to defend against a simulated attack by an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), one of the officials said. The THAAD interceptors will be fired from Alaska.

The United States has THAAD interceptors in Guam that are meant to help guard against a missile attack from a country such as North Korea.

The officials who disclosed to Reuters the precise nature and timing of the upcoming test spoke on condition of anonymity.

Asked by Reuters, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) confirmed that it aimed to carry out a THAAD flight test “in early July.”

Chris Johnson, an MDA spokesman, said the THAAD weapon system at the Pacific Spaceport Complex Alaska in Kodiak, Alaska, would “detect, track and engage a target with a THAAD interceptor.”

“The test is designated as Flight Test THAAD (FTT)-18,” Johnson said. He did not elaborate.

Still, in recent testimony to Congress, Vice Admiral James Syring, then the director of the Missile Defense Agency, said FTT-18 would aim to demonstrate THAAD’s ability to intercept a separating IRBM target.

MDA said THAAD had a 100 percent successful track record in its 13 flight tests since 2006. After previous tests, the U.S. military has publicly disclosed the results.

SOUTH KOREAN DEPLOYMENT

THAAD is a ground-based missile defense system designed to shoot down short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

Lockheed Martin Corp, the prime contractor for the THAAD system, said it has the ability to intercept incoming missiles both inside and outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

This year’s U.S. deployment of THAAD in South Korea to guard against North Korea’s shorter-range missiles has also drawn fierce criticism from China, which says the system’s powerful radar can probe deep into its territory.

Earlier this month Moscow and Beijing, in a joint statement, called on Washington to immediately halt deployment of THAAD in South Korea.

The statement said Washington was using North Korea as a pretext to expand its military infrastructure in Asia and risked upsetting the strategic balance of power in the region.

THAAD’s success rate in testing is far higher than the one for America’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense system (GMD), the system specifically designed to shoot down an ICBM headed for the U.S. mainland.

That GMD system has only a 55 percent success rate over the life of the program. But advocates note that the technology has improved dramatically in recent years.

In a key development, the GMD system successfully shot down an incoming, simulated North Korean ICBM in a test in May.

That led the Pentagon to upgrade its assessment of America’s ability to defend against a small number of ICBMs, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.

MDA told Congress in June that it plans to deliver 52 more THAAD interceptors to the U.S. Army between October 2017 and September 2018, for a total of 210 since May 2011.

In a sign of U.S. congressional concern about missile defense, several lawmakers filed amendments to a sweeping defense policy bill on Friday that addressed North Korea. Republican Representative Don Young, whose home state Alaska is seen as especially vulnerable to the North Korea threat, asked for more ground-based interceptors for his state, and a study of potential additional sites on the East Coast or Midwest.

Democratic Representatives John Conyers and Sheila Jackson Lee, along with Republican Walter Jones, filed an amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act saying that nothing in the bill should be construed as authorizing the use of force against North Korea.

The full House of Representatives is due to consider the bill, and its amendments, next week.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and James Dalgleish)

South Korea bomb shelters forgotten with no food, water as North Korea threat grows

FILE PHOTO: A shelter is seen near the Tae Sung freedom village near the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), inside the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, in Paju, South Korea, November 22, 2016. Picture taken on November 22, 2016. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

By Haejin Choi and Heekyong Yang

SEOUL (Reuters) – Long within reach of most conventional North Korean artillery and missiles, South Korea and Japan are far from prepared if an all-out military conflict breaks out as tensions escalate over Pyongyang’s rapidly advancing nuclear weapons program.

The United States said this week it was ready to use force if necessary to counter the threat from North Korea, which tested an intercontinental ballistic missile that some experts believe has the range to reach Alaska and Hawaii and perhaps the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

North Korea often threatens to strike the neighboring South and Japan, vowing to turn Seoul into a ‘sea of fire’ and ‘a pile of ashes’ the moment it has an order from leader Kim Jong Un.

South Korea has nearly 19,000 bomb shelters throughout the country. They include more than 3,200 in Seoul, just 40 km (25 miles) from the militarized border drawn up under a truce that stopped the 1950-53 Korean War but left the combatants technically at war.

Chung Yoon-jin, a university student in Seoul, had no clue these shelters existed.

“I have never seen any signs that say ‘shelter’, although I have been to lots of places in Seoul,” the 26-year-old Chung said.

The shelters are not built to protect against nuclear, chemical or biological attacks. They are mostly in subway stations or basements and parking garages in private apartments and commercial buildings designated as shelters with the consent of the owners.

For a graphic on the locations of the shelters, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2rW8uvn

In Seoul, most bomb shelters have no long-term supplies of food, water, medical kits or gas masks, an official at Seoul Metropolitan Government told Reuters. They can’t be forced to stock up because no public funding is provided, said the official who declined to be identified.

In Tokyo, the Japanese capital of 13.5 million people has an unknown number of bomb shelters left from World War II, but they are not useable or accessible to the public, an official at Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s disaster prevention department told Reuters.

Tokyo has no plans to reuse the decades-old shelters or build new ones for now.

“The extent of any damage that could be caused by a North Korean missile is still unknown, and it will take time to figure out an appropriate design for a shelter,” the official said.

OBLIVIOUS TO MISSILE THREAT

While residents in Alaska and Hawaii are just waking up to the possibility of living within range of a North Korean missile, South Koreans for years have been exposed to thousands of artillery massed an hour’s drive or so from the border, in addition to short-range missiles and bombs.

People have grown numb to Pyongyang’s unprecedented pace of missile and nuclear tests since the beginning of last year.

“Every time, nothing seems to happen after (North Korea provocation), so now I feel I’m used to it. I think to myself, nothing will happen,” said Suh Yeon-ju, a 30-year-old housewife.

Unlike in Japan, where sales of private nuclear shelters and radiation-blocking air purifiers have risen in recent months, South Korea has no market for private bunkers.

One public bomb shelter that Reuters visited in central Seoul was in a large underground parking garage a few steps from a government complex building. A small sign posted at the entrance indicated a shelter, but people inside had no clue.

A person in charge of the parking garage said one day last year he came to the office and saw a “shelter” sign posted, but he had no idea what it was.

To raise awareness, Seoul has handed out 34,000 paper fans this summer with information about bomb shelters, and is in the process of creating other promotional products such as flyers and stickers, the city government official said.

But it’s difficult to get the buildings hosting shelters to put easily seen directional signs, he said.

Shin Ji-ha, a 24-year-old university student in Seoul, said she heard about bomb shelters but didn’t know where they were. It didn’t matter to her anyway.

“I would be dead like in less than a second (if a war broke out),” she said. “There will be no pain at all so I don’t mind that much.”

For a graphic on threat to Seoul, click http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/NORTHKOREA-MISSILES/010041BR2VH/index.html

(Additional reporting by Yuna Park, Christine Kim, Dahee Kim and Se Young Lee in Seoul, Megumi Lim in Tokyo; Writing by Soyoung Kim; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

Russia and China tell North Korea, U.S. and South Korea to embrace de-escalation plan

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping walk past honour guards during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia July 4, 2017. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia and China joined diplomatic forces on Tuesday and called on North Korea, South Korea and the United States to sign up to a Chinese de-escalation plan designed to defuse tensions around Pyongyang’s missile program.

The plan would see North Korea suspend its ballistic missile program and the United States and South Korea simultaneously call a moratorium on large-scale missile exercises, both moves aimed at paving the way for multilateral talks.

The initiative was set out in a joint statement from the Russian and Chinese foreign ministries issued shortly after President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held wide-ranging talks in the Kremlin.

“The situation in the region affects the national interests of both countries,” the joint statement said. “Russia and China will work in close coordination to advance a solution to the complex problem of the Korean Peninsula in every possible way.”

North Korea said on Tuesday it had successfully test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the first time, which flew a trajectory that experts said could allow a weapon to hit the U.S. state of Alaska.

Russia and China both share a land border with North Korea and have been involved in past efforts to try to calm tensions between Pyongyang and the West.

Moscow and Beijing used the same joint declaration to call on Washington to immediately halt deployment of its THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea, a move Washington says is necessitated by the North Korean missile threat.

The statement said Washington was using North Korea as a pretext to expand its military infrastructure in Asia and risked upsetting the strategic balance of power in the area.

“The deployment … of THAAD will cause serious harm to the strategic security interests of regional states, including Russia and China,” the statement said.

“Russia and China oppose the deployment of such systems and call on the relevant countries to immediately halt and cancel the process of deployment.”

(Reporting by Denis Dyomkin/Vladimir Soldatkin/Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Trump calls for firm response to North Korea, targets Seoul on trade

U.S. President Donald Trump (L) welcomes South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the White House in Washington, U.S., June 30, 2017. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

By David Brunnstrom and Lisa Lambert

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump called for a determined response to North Korea after talks with South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in on Friday where he stressed the importance of their alliance but took aim at Seoul over trade and sharing the cost of defense.

Trump said the United States was renegotiating what he characterized as a “rough” trade deal with South Korea agreed to five years ago by his predecessor, Barack Obama, and reiterated that an era of “strategic patience” over North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs had ended.

“Together we are facing the threat of the reckless and brutal regime in North Korea,” Trump said as he stood alongside Moon in the White House Rose Garden. “The nuclear and ballistic missile programs of that regime require a determined response.”

Despite the tough rhetoric, it remains unclear how Trump will find a way forward on North Korea, which is working to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the United States.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has warned the consequences of any military solution would be “tragic on an unbelievable scale.” Trump had pinned his hopes on persuading China, North Korea’s neighbor and main trading partner, to do more to rein in Pyongyang, although he has lately grown frustrated that Beijing has not taken stronger action.

Trump called on regional powers to implement sanctions and demand North Korea “choose a better path and do it quickly.”

Moon, who warned of a “stern response” to any provocations, urged Pyongyang to return promptly to talks.

“Our two leaders will employ both sanctions and dialogue in a phased and comprehensive approach,” Moon said of South Korea and the United States.

Trump and Moon have said they are open to renewed dialogue with North Korea but only under circumstances that would lead to Pyongyang giving up its weapons programs.

Moon told an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank that moves by North Korea that could create conditions for dialogue could include a freeze on its nuclear and missile tests, or the release of three Americans it is holding in the country.

To be successful, talks would have to involve North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and have as their ultimate aim the complete dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear program, he added.

Trump sought to woo China since a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in April but the honeymoon period appears to be over. On Thursday, the United States targeted a Chinese bank and sanctioned Chinese individuals and a firm for dealing with North Korea and approved a $1.42 billion arms deal with Taiwan – decisions that angered Beijing.

STEEL AND AUTOS

South Korea is a long-standing American ally but Trump has spoken harshly about U.S. trade imbalances and threatened to tear up the bilateral trade pact.

“We will do more to remove barriers to reciprocal trade and market access,” Trump said, adding that the two leaders had talked about the thorny trade areas of steel and autos.

Trump said he was encouraged by Moon’s assurances that he would seek a level playing field for American workers and businesses, particularly automakers.

A joint statement said the two sides had agreed to work together to reduce over supply of basic materials such as steel and non-tariff barriers. It also said Trump had accepted an invitation from Moon to visit South Korea this year.

Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said it was unwise for Trump to air the trade issue so publicly.

“Public complaints by Trump about unfair trade and inadequate defense spending provide opportunities for China and North Korea to drive a wedge between the allies,” she said.

Trump also emphasized the need to ensure equitable sharing of costs for defense, returning to a theme he raised during his campaign and brought up with other allies, including NATO countries and Japan.

A senior U.S. official said in a briefing before the president’s meeting with Moon that South Korea was in many respects a “model ally,” given its spending of 2.7 percent of GDP on defense and Moon’s plan to grow capabilities.

“We shouldn’t view South Korea as somehow laggard on that front,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. goods trade deficit with South Korea has more than doubled since the U.S.-Korea free trade pact known as KORUS took effect in 2012. The agreement was forecast to boost U.S. exports by $10 billion a year, but in 2016 they were $3 billion lower than in 2011.

At the start of Friday’s talks, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the largest component of the deficit was automotive trade and many non-tariff barriers to U.S. auto exports to South Korea remained.

“I think the way to address it is to deal product by product with what we can do to change the export side and what we can do to reduce the bad imports side,” he said.

Ross said later on Friday that some progress had been made in the talks.

The current pact was agreed to despite protests by supporters of Moon, who was then in opposition. But analysts have suggested that given the need to preserve a unified front in the face of a hostile North Korea, there could be compromise on both sides to resolve issues.

(Additional reporting by Fatima Bhojani, Roberta Rampton, Tim Ahmann, David Chance, David Lawder and Eric Beech; Editing by Bill Trott and Andrew Hay)