Tag Archives: Nuclear Test

U.S. experts think North Korea could launch missile ‘within days’: government sources

U.S. experts think North Korea could launch missile 'within days': government sources

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. government experts think North Korea could conduct a new missile test within days, in what would be its first launch since it fired a missile over Japan in mid-September, two authoritative U.S. government sources said on Tuesday.

One of the U.S. sources, who did not want to be identified, said the United States had evidence that Japanese reports about the monitoring of signals suggesting North Korea was preparing a new missile test were accurate.

Both sources said U.S. government experts believed a new test could occur “within days.”

A Japanese government source said earlier on Tuesday that Japan had detected radio signals suggesting North Korea may be preparing another ballistic missile launch, although such signals were not unusual and satellite images did not show fresh activity.

Other U.S. intelligence officials have noted North Korea has previously sent deliberately misleading signs of preparations for missile and nuclear tests, in part to mask real preparations, and in part to test U.S. and allied intelligence on its activities.

After firing missiles at a rate of about two or three a month since April, North Korean missile launches paused inSeptember, after it fired a missile that passed over Japan’s northern Hokkaido island on Sept. 15.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Writing by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Susan Thomas)

EU’s diplomatic back channel in Pyongyang goes cold

FILE PHOTO: North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un makes a statement regarding U.S. President Donald Trump's speech at the U.N. general assembly, in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang September 22, 2017. KCNA via REUTERS/File Photo

By Robin Emmott

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – While European powers France and Britain are lobbying Washington to cool tensions since North Korea’s most powerful nuclear test a month ago, EU nations with embassies in Pyongyang are directly pressing the North Koreans.

A group of seven European Union countries – the Czech Republic, Sweden, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria, as well as Britain and Germany – held at least two formal meetings with North Korean officials in Pyongyang in September, three EU diplomats said.

But they felt frustrated because the higher-level access that they had obtained in Pyongyang last year had fallen away, with only medium-ranking foreign ministry officials now attending the meetings, the diplomats said.

“There was a sense that we weren’t really getting anywhere because they sent these department heads,” said a Brussels-based diplomat who had been briefed on the meetings, which were described as “very serious” in atmosphere and tone.

“They want to talk to the United States.”

The White House has ruled out such talks, with President Donald Trump telling Secretary of State Rex Tillerson he would be “wasting his time” negotiating with the North Koreans.

The United States has no embassy in Pyongyang and relies on Sweden, the so-called U.S. protecting power there, to do consular work, especially when Westerners get into trouble.

In contrast to recent meetings, when North Korean officials met EU envoys in the Czech Republic’s embassy in 2016 to discuss issues including cultural programs and regional security, a deputy foreign minister would attend, one EU diplomat said.

For the small club of European Union governments with embassies in North Korea, that reflects Pyongyang’s anger at the EU’s gradually expanding sanctions that go beyond those agreed by the United Nations Security Council.

It could have repercussions for broader EU efforts to help mediate in the nuclear crisis, according to the EU diplomats briefed by their colleagues in Pyongyang, as the bloc prepares more measures against North Korea.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who chaired talks on the historic 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, says the bloc is ready to mediate in any talks aimed at freezing North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons programs.

But at the same time, the European Union wants an oil embargo on Pyongyang that it hopes other countries will follow.

Some EU governments are pushing to cancel North Korean work permits in Poland and other eastern European countries because EU officials believe workers’ salaries are deposited in bank accounts controlled by the regime in Pyongyang.

“The North Koreans are starting to see the EU as a U.S. puppet, but we stress that we are an honest broker,” said a second EU diplomat.

‘KEEP IT A SECRET’

Links with the EU embassies go back years. Communist Czechoslovakia was a leading supplier of heavy machinery to North Korea. As a Soviet satellite, Czechoslovakia established diplomatic ties with North Korea in 1948, along with Poland and Romania.

The seven European embassies in Pyongyang are among only 24 foreign missions there, including Russia, China and Cuba.

The EU’s status as a potential broker relies, in part, on Sweden, which was the first Western European nation to establish diplomatic relations with the North in 1973.

Sweden is a member of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission, which was set up to oversee the 1953 armistice between North and South Korea, undertake inspections, observe military exercises and promote trust between the two sides.

Czechoslovakia was also a member of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission until the early 1990s.

Sweden played a key role in the release of Canadian pastor Hyeon Soo Lim and of U.S. student Otto Warmbier earlier this year. But Sweden has strongly backed the EU sanctions.

The seven European embassies are limited in what they can say because North Korean staff, required by the government to work at the EU embassies, are expected to double as informants for Pyongyang, the diplomats said.

“Sanctions and pressure … Sadly, we don’t have anything else,” said an EU diplomat in Brussels.

The joint meetings with the North Koreans, usually held at a single European mission, have been focused on the release of imprisoned Westerners, not big diplomatic initiatives.

But as efforts intensify to calm U.S. and North Korean threats of war, they could still prove an important channel to pass messages between Pyongyang and Washington.

“In the best case, we could perhaps facilitate an opening of a diplomatic track between the North Koreans and the United States,” said Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister and foreign minister from 2006 to 2014.

Bildt said anything the EU does must be kept secret.

“If the EU does something along these lines, the first thing the EU should do is not to talk about it. Talking about it is a pretty good way to ensure that one can’t do it,” he said.

NO SAFETY NET

Mathieu Duchatel, a North Korea expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank that Bildt also now helps oversee, said the European Union could chair talks between China and the United States.

Washington and Pyongyang have no hotlines to prevent crises from spinning out of control and it is not clear what Beijing’s reaction would be if the United States intercepted a North Korean missile test, Duchatel said.

For now, Paris is in contact with White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, diplomats said, noting French President Emmanuel Macron’s budding relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Lieutenant General McMaster and Kelly, a retired four-star Marine Corps general, have a soft spot for France born of their admiration for the French military, the diplomats said.

It is unclear if that translates into a direct impact on Trump’s thinking on North Korea, European diplomats said.

“They are trying to normalize Trump, but I don’t think Trump can be normalized,” said a senior French diplomat. “To get him to listen, heads of state need to speak to him directly.”

Macron, who has ruled out a military option, has said he believes he could convince Trump to avoid armed intervention. Macron’s position is to keep repeating the mantra of patience and dialogue to Trump, diplomats said.

(Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris; editing by Giles Elgood)

Korean peninsula draws range of military drills in show of force against North Korea

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches the launch of a Hwasong-12 missile in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on September 16, 2017. KCNA via REUTERS

By Ben Blanchard and Hyonhee Shin

BEIJING/SEOUL (Reuters) – The U.S. military staged bombing drills with South Korea over the Korean peninsula and Russia and China began naval exercises ahead of a U.N. General Assembly meeting on Tuesday where North Korea’s nuclear threat is likely to loom large.

The flurry of military drills came after Pyongyang fired another mid-range ballistic missile over Japan on Friday and the reclusive North conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3 in defiance of United Nations sanctions and other international pressure.

A pair of U.S. B-1B bombers and four F-35 jets flew from Guam and Japan and joined four South Korean F-15K fighters in the latest drill, South Korea’s defense ministry said.

The joint drills were being conducted “two to three times a month these days”, Defence Minister Song Young-moo told a parliamentary hearing on Monday.

In Beijing, the official Xinhua news agency said China and Russia began naval drills off the Russian far eastern port of Vladivostok, not far from the Russia-North Korea border.

Those drills were being conducted between Peter the Great Bay, near Vladivostok, and the southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk, to the north of Japan, it said.

The drills are the second part of China-Russian naval exercises this year, the first part of which was staged in the Baltic in July. Xinhua did not directly link the drills to current tension over North Korea.

China and Russia have repeatedly called for a peaceful solution and talks to resolve the issue.

On Sunday, however, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said the U.N. Security Council had run out of options on containing North Korea’s nuclear program and the United States might have to turn the matter over to the Pentagon.

In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the most pressing task was for all parties to enforce the latest U.N. resolutions on North Korea fully, rather than “deliberately complicating the issue”.

Military threats from various parties have not promoted a resolution to the issue, he said.

“This is not beneficial to a final resolution to the peninsula nuclear issue,” Lu told a daily news briefing.

U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed that North Korea will never be able to threaten the United States with a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile.

Asked about Trump’s warning last month that the North Korean threat to the United States would be met with “fire and fury”, Haley said: “It was not an empty threat.”

Washington has also asked China to do more to rein in its neighbor and ally, while Beijing has urged the United States to refrain from making threats against the North.

 

FUEL PRICES SURGE

The U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a U.S.-drafted resolution a week ago mandating tougher new sanctions against Pyongyang that included banning textile imports and capping crude and petrol supply.

North Korea on Monday called the resolution “the most vicious, unethical and inhumane act of hostility to physically exterminate” its people, system and government.

“The increased moves of the U.S. and its vassal forces to impose sanctions and pressure… will only increase our pace toward the ultimate completion of the state nuclear force,” the North’s foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by its official KCNA news agency.

Gasoline and diesel prices in the North have surged since the latest nuclear test in anticipation of a possible oil ban, according to market data analyzed by Reuters on Monday.

The international community must remain united and enforce sanctions against North Korea after its repeated launch of ballistic missiles, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in an editorial in the New York Times on Sunday.

Such tests were in violation of Security Council resolutions and showed that North Korea could now target the United States or Europe, he wrote.

Abe also said diplomacy and dialogue would not work with North Korea and concerted pressure by the entire international community was essential to tackle the threats posed by the north and its leader, Kim Jong Un.

However, the official China Daily argued on Monday that sanctions should be given time to bite and that the door must be left open to talks.

“With its Friday missile launch, Pyongyang wanted to give the impression that sanctions will not work,” it said in an editorial. “Some people have fallen for that and immediately echoed the suggestion, pointing to the failure of past sanctions to achieve their purpose.

“But that past sanctions did not work does not mean they will not. It is too early to claim failure because the latest sanctions have hardly begun to take effect. Giving the sanctions time to bite is the best way to make Pyongyang reconsider,” the newspaper said.

Pyongyang has launched dozens of missiles as it accelerates a weapons program designed to provide the ability to target the United States with a powerful, nuclear-tipped missile.

It says such programs are needed as a deterrent against invasion by the United States, which has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea. On Saturday, it said it aimed to reach an “equilibrium” of military force with the United States.

The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce and not a peace treaty.

 

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING, Hyonhee Shin and Soyoung Kim in SEOUL; Editing by Paul Tait and Simon Cameron-Moore)

 

North Korea defiant over U.N. sanctions as Trump says tougher steps needed

North Korea defiant over U.N. sanctions as Trump says tougher steps needed

By Jack Kim and Roberta Rampton

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – North Korea showed trademark defiance on Wednesday over new U.N. sanctions imposed after its sixth and largest nuclear test, vowing to redouble efforts to fight off what it said was the threat of a U.S. invasion.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday’s sanctions, unanimously agreed on Monday by the 15-member U.N. Security Council, were just a small step towards what is ultimately needed to rein in Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs.

The North’s Foreign Ministry said the resolutions were an infringement on its legitimate right to self-defense and aimed at “completely suffocating its state and people through full-scale economic blockade”.

“The DPRK will redouble the efforts to increase its strength to safeguard the country’s sovereignty and right to existence and to preserve peace and security of the region by establishing the practical equilibrium with the U.S.,” it said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.

The statement echoed comments on Tuesday by the North’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Han Tae Song, who said Pyongyang was “ready to use a form of ultimate means”.

“The forthcoming measures … will make the U.S. suffer the greatest pain it ever experienced in its history,” Han said.

The North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper also accused South Korea of being Washington’s “puppet”, criticizing Seoul’s agreement with the United States to amend an existing bilateral guideline that will now allow the South to use unlimited warhead payloads on its missiles.

The U.N. Security Council agreed to boost sanctions on North Korea, banning its textile exports and capping fuel supplies, and making it illegal for foreign firms to form commercial joint ventures with North Korean entities.

The U.N. resolution was triggered by North Korea’s test of what it said was a hydrogen bomb.

Damage to mountainous terrain at the North’s nuclear test site in Punggye-ri seen in satellite imagery taken after the latest test was more extensive than anything seen after the five previous tests, the Washington-based 38 North project said.

There was also activity at another location in the Mount Mantap site involving large vehicles and mining equipment that suggests “onsite work could now be changing focus to further prepare those other portals for future underground nuclear testing”, said 38 North, which monitors North Korea.

The North accuses the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean war, of continual plans for invasion.

North Korea has also tested a missile capable of reaching the United States, but experts say it is likely to be at least a year before it can field an operational nuclear missile that could threaten the U.S. mainland.

ANOTHER SMALL STEP

Trump has vowed not to allow that to happen.

A tougher initial U.S. draft resolution was weakened to win the support of China and Russia, both of which hold U.N. veto power. Significantly, it stopped short of imposing a full embargo on oil exports to North Korea, most of which come from China.

“We think it’s just another very small step, not a big deal,” Trump told reporters at the start of a meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

“I don’t know if it has any impact, but certainly it was nice to get a 15-to-nothing vote, but those sanctions are nothing compared to what ultimately will have to happen.”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin warned China, North Korea’s main ally and trading partner, that Washington would “put additional sanctions on them and prevent them from accessing the U.S. and international dollar system” if it did not follow through on the new measures.

Another senior administration official told Reuters any such “secondary sanctions” on Chinese banks and other companies were on hold for now to give China time to show it was prepared to fully enforce the latest and previous rounds of sanctions.

Washington so far has mostly held off on new sanctions against Chinese banks and other companies doing business with North Korea, given fears of retaliation by Beijing and possibly far-reaching effects on the world economy.

Russia and China both say they respect U.N. sanctions and have called on the United States to return to negotiations with North Korea. They have also said they could kick-start talks with North Korea if the United States halts joint military drills with South Korea, which Washington has rejected.

An article carried on the front page of the People’s Daily, the official paper of China’s ruling Communist Party, said the Korean peninsula had reached the “moment of choice” where the United States and North Korea must break from the cycle of nuclear tests and sanctions.

“All parties involved in the peninsula have their own strategic considerations, but not being able to see beyond this vicious cycle is not in anyone’s interest,” the article said.

Asked about the North Korean and U.S. rhetoric, China’s foreign ministry reiterated a call for restraint and a return to dialogue.

“We hope all relevant parties can be rational and maintain restraint and not take actions that could further increase tensions on the peninsula,” ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a regular briefing.

In another show of force, South Korea’s Air Force conducted its first live-fire exercise of Taurus long-range, air-to-surface missiles on Tuesday, the defense ministry said, as practice for precision bombing North Korean facilities.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said the new sanctions could eventually starve North Korea of an additional $500 million or more in annual revenue.

The United States has said that a previous round of sanctions agreed in August was aimed at cutting North Korea’s $3 billion in exports by a third.

(Additional reporting by Christine Kim and Yuna Park in SEOUL, Michael Martina and Christian Shepherd in BEIJING, and Roberta Rampton and David Brunnstrom in WASHINGTON; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Paul Tait and Nick Macfie)

South Korea braces for possible new missile test to mark North’s founding day

FILE PHOTO: South Korean national flags hang on a barbed-wire fence near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas in Paju, South Korea, August 14, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

By Christine Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea braced for a possible further missile test by North Korea when it marks its founding anniversary on Saturday, just days after its sixth and largest nuclear test, which it marks each year with a big display of pageantry and military hardware.

Throughout the week, South Korean officials have warned the North could launch another intercontinental ballistic missile, in defiance of U.N. sanctions and amid an escalating standoff with the United States.

Last year, North Korea conducted its fifth nuclear test on the Sept. 9 anniversary.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has escalated as North Korea’s young leader, Kim Jong Un, has stepped up the development of weapons, testing a string of missiles this year, including one flying over Japan, and conducting its sixth nuclear test on Sunday.

Experts believe the isolated regime is close to its goal of developing a powerful nuclear weapon capable of reaching the United States, something Trump has vowed to prevent.

South Korean nuclear experts, checking for contamination, said on Friday they had found minute traces of radioactive xenon gas but that it was too early to link it to Sunday’s explosion.

The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC) said it had been conducting tests on land, air and water samples since shortly after the North Korean nuclear test on Sunday.

Xenon is a naturally occurring, colorless gas that is used in manufacturing of some sorts of lights. But the NSSC said it had detected xenon-133, a radioactive isotope that does not occur naturally and which has in the past been linked to North Korea’s nuclear tests.

There was no chance the xenon “will have an impact on South Korea’s territory or population”, the agency said.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said all options are on the table in dealing with North Korea and on Thursday said he would prefer not to use military action, but if he did, it would be a “very sad day” for North Korea.

“Military action would certainly be an option. Is it inevitable? Nothing is inevitable,” Trump told reporters. “If we do use it on North Korea, it will be a very sad day for North Korea.”

Even as Trump has insisted that now is not the time to talk, senior members of his administration have made clear that the door to a diplomatic solution is open, especially given the U.S. assessment that any pre-emptive strike would unleash massive North Korean retaliation.

North Korea says it needs its weapons to protect itself from U.S. aggression and regularly threatens to destroy the United States.

South Korea and the United States are technically still at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce, not a peace treaty.

US CARRIER ON THE MOVE

The USS Ronald Reagan, a nuclear-powered carrier, left its home port in Japan for a routine autumn patrol of the Western Pacific, a Navy spokeswoman said. That area included waters between Japan and the Korean peninsula, she added, without giving any further details.

The Ronald Reagan was out on routine patrol from May until August, and was sent to the Sea of Japan with the another carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, to take part in drills with Japan’s Self Defence Forces as well as the South Korean military.

North Korea vehemently objects to military exercises on or near the peninsula, and China and Russia have suggested the United States and South Korea halt their exercises to lower tension.

While Trump talked tough on North Korea, China agreed on Thursday that the United Nations should take more action against it, but it also pushed for dialogue.

The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote on a new set of sanctions soon. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that it was too early to draw conclusions about the final form of the U.N. resolution, Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted Lavrov as saying at a news conference on Friday.

North Korea offered fresh vitriol against the pending sanctions, specifically targeting U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who this week accused North Korean leader Kim of “begging for war”.

“There is nothing more foolish than thinking we, a strong nuclear state, will endure this evil pressure aimed at overthrowing our state,” the North’s official news agency said in a commentary.

“Even if Nikki Haley is blind, she must use her mouth correctly. The United States administration will pay for not being able to control the mouth of their U.N. representative.”

The United States wants the U.N. Security Council to impose an oil embargo on North Korea, ban its exports of textiles and the hiring of North Korean laborers abroad, and to subject leader Kim Jong Un to an asset freeze and travel ban, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

China is by far North Korea’s biggest trading partner, accounting for 92 percent of two-way trade last year. It also provides hundreds of thousands of tonnes of oil and fuel to the impoverished regime.

China’s economic influence has been felt by South Korea as well. The two countries have been at loggerheads over South Korea’s decision to deploy a U.S. anti-missile system, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, which has a powerful radar that can probe deep into China.

Shares in South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor and key suppliers slid on Friday on worry over its position in China after highly critical Chinese state newspaper comments.

The military section of China’s Global Times newspaper on Thursday referred to THAAD as “a malignant tumor”.

Graphic on Nuclear North Korea: http://tmsnrt.rs/2n0gd92

(Additional reporting by Nobuhiro Kubo in TOKYO, Hyunjoo Jin in SEOUL and Christian Lowe in MOSCOW; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Robert Birsel)

South Korea warns that North may launch ICBM after nuclear test

South Korean troops fire Hyunmoo Missile into the waters of the East Sea at a military exercise in South Korea September 4, 2017.

By Christine Kim and David Brunnstrom

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – South Korea said on Monday it was talking to the United States about deploying aircraft carriers and strategic bombers to the Korean peninsula after signs North Korea might launch more missiles in the wake of its sixth and largest nuclear test.

The U.N. Security Council was set to meet later on Monday to discuss new sanctions against the isolated regime. U.S. President Donald Trump had also asked to be briefed on all available military options, according to his defense chief.

Officials said activity around missile launch sites suggested North Korea planned more missile tests.

“We have continued to see signs of possibly more ballistic missile launches. We also forecast North Korea could fire an intercontinental ballistic missile,” Jang Kyoung-soo, acting deputy minister of national defense policy, told a parliament hearing on Monday.

North Korea tested two ICBMs in July that could fly about 10,000 km (6,200 miles), putting many parts of the U.S. mainland within range and prompting a new round of tough international sanctions.

South Korea’s air force and army conducted exercises involving long-range air-to-surface and ballistic missiles on Monday following the North’s nuclear test on Sunday, its joint chiefs of staff said in a statement.

In addition to the drill, South Korea will cooperate with the United States and seek to deploy “strategic assets like aircraft carriers and strategic bombers”, Jang said.

South Korea’s defense ministry also said it would deploy the four remaining launchers of a new U.S. missile defense system after the completion of an environmental assessment by the government.

The rollout of the controversial Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system at a site south of the South Korean capital, Seoul, is vehemently opposed by neighboring China and Russia, had been delayed since June.

 

TOUGH TALK

North Korea said it tested an advanced hydrogen bomb for a long-range missile on Sunday, prompting a warning of a “massive” military response from the United States if it or its allies were threatened.

“We are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea,” U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said after meeting Trump and his national security team.

“But as I said, we have many options to do so.”

Trump has previously vowed to stop North Korea developing nuclear weapons and said he would unleash “fire and fury” if it threatened U.S. territory

Despite the tough talk, the immediate focus of the international response was expected to be on tougher economic sanctions.

Diplomats have said the U.N. Security Council could now consider banning North Korean textile exports and its national airline, stop supplies of oil to the government and military, prevent North Koreans from working abroad and add top officials to a blacklist to subject them to an asset freeze and travel ban.

Asked about Trump’s threat to punish countries that trade with North Korea, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China has dedicated itself to resolving the North Korean issue via talks, and China’s efforts had been recognized.

“What we absolutely cannot accept is that on the one hand (we are) making arduous efforts to peacefully resolve the North Korean nuclear issue, and on the other hand (our) interests are being sanctioned or harmed. This is both not objective and not fair,” he told a regular briefing.

On possible new U.N. sanctions, and whether China would support cutting off oil, Geng said it would depend on the outcome of Security Council discussions.

Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency said in an editorial North Korea was “playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship” and it should wake up to the fact that such a tactic “can never bring security it pursues”.

While South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed on Monday to work with the United States to pursue stronger sanctions, Russia voiced scepticism.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said sanctions on North Korea had reached the limit of their impact. Any more would be aimed at breaking its economy, so a decision to impose further constraints would become dramatically harder, he told a BRICS summit in China.

South Korea says the aim of stronger sanctions is to draw North Korea into dialogue. But, in a series of tweets on Sunday, Trump also appeared to rebuke South Korea for that approach.

“South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!” Trump said on Twitter.

Still, Trump’s response was more orderly and less haphazard than he had offered to other hostile actions by North Korea.

His handling of its latest nuclear test reflected a more traditional approach to crisis management, which U.S. officials said illustrated the influence of Mattis and new White House chief of staff, retired Marine Corps General John Kelly.

 

MARKETS CAUTIOUS

Japanese and South Korean stock markets both closed down about 1 percent on Monday, while safe haven assets including gold and sovereign bonds ticked higher, but trade was cautious. [MKTS/GLOB]

“Assuming the worst on the Korean peninsula has not proven to be a winning trading strategy this year,” said Sean Callow, a senior foreign exchange strategist at Westpac Bank.

“Investors seem reluctant to price in anything more severe than trade sanctions, and the absence of another ‘fire and fury’ Trump tweet has helped encourage markets to respond warily.”

South Korea’s finance minister vowed to support financial markets if instability showed signs of spreading to the real economy.

Sunday’s test had registered with international seismic agencies as a man-made earthquake near a test site. Japanese and South Korean officials said the tremor was about 10 times more powerful than the one picked up after North Korea’s previous nuclear test a year ago.

China’s National Nuclear Safety Administration said data from radiation monitoring stations near the North Korean border showed no impact on “China’s environment or populace”.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that, while North Korea was not a puppet state of China, Beijing needed to do more to pressure its neighbor.

“The Chinese are frustrated and dismayed by North Korea’s conduct, but China has the greatest leverage, and with the greatest leverage comes the greatest responsibility,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp on Monday.

 

For a graphic on nuclear North Korea, click: http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/NORTHKOREA-MISSILES/010031V7472/index.html

 

 

(Additional reporting by Shin-hyung Lee, Hyunjoo Jin, Cynthia Kim in SEOUL, Steve Holland and John Walcott in WASHINGTON, John Ruwitch in SHANGHAI, Wayne Cole and Swati Pandey in SYDNEY; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

 

What will Kim do next? Sixth nuclear test seen critical for North Korea

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected the Command of the Strategic Force of the Korean People's Army (KPA) in an unknown location in North Korea in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on August 15, 2017. KCNA/via REUTERS

By Christine Kim and David Brunnstrom

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – North Korea says it has developed intercontinental missiles capable of targeting any place in the United States.

Now comes the hard part of fulfilling the declared goal of its leader Kim Jong Un: perfecting a nuclear device small and light enough to fit on the missile without affecting its range as well as making it capable of surviving re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere.

To do that, weapons experts say, the isolated state needs to carry out at least another nuclear test, its sixth, and more tests of long-range missiles.

North Korea’s two tests of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) last month likely carried a payload lighter than any nuclear warhead it is currently able to produce, the experts said.

One way to have a lighter warhead would be to concentrate on developing a thermonuclear device, or hydrogen bomb, which would offer much greater explosive yield relative to size and weight.

Pyongyang claims to have tested a hydrogen bomb, but this has not been proven, said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Program at the Federation of American Scientists.

“Doing so would take several more nuclear tests,” he said.

“The advantage of a thermonuclear warhead is that it packs a lot more power into less weight.”

Choi Jin-wook, a professor of international relations at Japan’s Ritsumeikan University and former president of South Korea’s state-run Korea Institute for National Unification, said a sixth nuclear test would be essential for North Korea to develop an operational nuclear-tipped ICBM.

“In order to make a nuclear weapon deployable it has to be small and light, but North Korea doesn’t seem to have this technology,” he said.

South Korea’s president said on Thursday Pyongyang would be “crossing a red line” if it put a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile, and U.S. President Donald Trump has warned that North Korea would face “fire and fury” if it threatened the United States.

For an interactive package on North Korea’s missile capabilities, click http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/NORTHKOREA-MISSILES/010041L63FE/index.html

KIM MUST WEIGH RISKS

North Korea is a highly secretive nation and predictions of what it will do next are often little more than conjecture.

Still, Kim is likely to be carefully weighing the timing of even a new nuclear test because it will antagonize North Korea’s sole major ally, China, and could trigger even tougher U.N. economic sanctions than those that followed ICBM tests in July.

A U.S. official, who asked not to be named, said that while periodic activity has been seen at North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site, he had not seen movement there for over a month and there were no current signs of an imminent test.

A second U.S. official added that North Korea has had parts in place for a nuclear launch for months, but no new activity had been seen recently.

Besides developing a miniaturized hydrogen bomb, some experts say it appears Kim’s rocket scientists have yet to master the technology to protect a warhead from the extreme heat and pressure of re-entering the earth’s atmosphere after an intercontinental flight

South Korea believes North Korea will need at least another one or two more years to obtain that re-entry technology, Seoul’s vice defense minister said on Sunday.

“Miniaturization for ballistic missiles is only one of the many challenges of targeting the U.S. with an ICBM,” said David Albright, a physicist and founder of the non-profit Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.

“The re-entry vehicle has to survive and the warhead work,” he said. “I am skeptical that North Korea has mastered all these steps.”

Among North Korea’s capabilities in the field, U.S. intelligence officials have said it likely can produce its own missile engines and does not need to rely on imports.

ESSENTIAL TO SURVIVAL

After Kim Jong Un ramped up the pace of weapons development last year with numerous missile launches as well as two nuclear tests in January and September 2016, some observers had expected a sixth nuclear test as early as this January.

Instead, Pyongyang has spent most of the year testing various types of missiles. After its first and second ICBM tests in July, it threatened to land missiles in the vicinity of Guam, a U.S. Pacific territory, drawing a stern warning from Trump.

Pyongyang has since said Kim has delayed his decision on Guam.

Pyongyang faces significantly tougher sanctions, including from China, if it conducts another nuclear test, said Moon Chung-in, a special adviser on foreign affairs and national security to South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

“If North Korea carries out a sixth nuclear weapons test, China will likely cut oil supplies to North Korea. I believe China has strongly warned North Korea not to conduct another nuclear test,” Moon said.

The Punggye-ri site is just 60 miles (100 km) from the border with China and 125 miles (200 km) from Russia, and past tests have angered both countries and caused them to back increasingly tough U.N. sanctions.

Kim Jong Un, however, sees the ability to threaten the United States as essential to the survival of his personal rule.

“North Korea will conduct a sixth nuclear test in order to bring the United States to negotiations,” said Yoo Ho-yeol, professor of unification and diplomacy at Seoul’s Korea University.

“I don’t know exactly when (it will happen), but a sixth nuclear test is a less dangerous option for North Korea than firing missiles towards Guam.”

(Additional reporting by Heekyong Yang and Ju-min Park in Seoul, John Walcott and Idrees Ali in Washington, Writing by Soyoung Kim; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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)

Is North Korea putting a nuclear-tipped bargaining chip on the table?

North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un. KCNA/via REUTERS

By James Pearson and Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) – As the leaders of China and the United States sit down for a summit on Thursday, North Korea has made sure it also has something on the negotiating table: A nuclear-tipped bargaining chip.

North Korea launched a projectile on Wednesday, which U.S. officials said appeared to be a liquid-fueled, extended-range Scud missile that only traveled a fraction of its range before spinning out of control and crashing into the sea.

The launch was North Korea’s latest in a long series of missile and nuclear tests that have accelerated in their variation and intensity over the last two years.

And now, experts agree, North Korea is closing in on the ability to hit the United States with a missile, a goal that for decades has been the subject of Pyongyang’s vivid propaganda posters.

“They’ve been able to put a nuke on a missile for a while now,” said Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

“The stated purpose of the last test was to validate the nuclear weapon design that would arm all of North Korea’s missiles,” Lewis said of North Korea’s September 2016 nuclear test – its fifth and largest to date.

Since then, North Korea has further ramped up its tests and rhetoric, emphasizing a consistent message: To create a nuclear device small enough to mount on an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), and fire it at the United States.

“If we push the button, the bombs will be fired and reduce the U.S. to ashes,” an editorial in the ruling Workers’ Party newspaper the Rodong Sinmun said on Wednesday.

North Korea now has the strength to “wipe out” the United States “in a moment” with an H-bomb, the editorial said.

“This is again our warning”.

BARGAINING CHIP

From last year, North Korea took the rare step of publicizing images of its missile equipment tests, convincing analysts that Pyongyang’s banned program was further along toward successfully testing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) than first thought.

“The first few tests might fail, but that’s not good news because they’ll learn,” said Lewis. “How long it takes to make it work is anyone’s guess. Maybe a couple of years, maybe the first time”.

North Korea has been pursuing its nuclear and missile programs at an unprecedented pace since last year, with an aim to expand its deterrence against Washington and diversify its line-up of nuclear-equipped missiles, another expert said. (See FACTBOX)

“They have been doing so many test launches last year and this year to develop systems to transport nuclear warheads,” said Kim Dong-yub, a professor at Kyungnam University’s Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Seoul.

“The whole thing is about expanding their deterrence and continuing to keep upgrading their missiles to deliver nuclear warheads,” said Kim.

It was not clear if Wednesday’s launch was deliberately timed to coincide with Thursday’s summit between China’s President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida, where North Korea is expected to be a prime topic of discussions.

Some experts think North Korea has tried to make sure the two world leaders are aware Pyongyang has a bargaining chip in any forthcoming moves to clam down on its weapons programs.

Cheong Seong-chang, a senior research fellow at Sejong Institute outside Seoul, said that could come in the form of another nuclear or ICBM test after the summit. Perhaps first with a low-level show of force – enough not to upset China – followed by a period of intensified weapons testing.

“Then, next month when a new (South Korean) government gets under way, North Korea is expected to try to turn the situation around into a phase of appeasement and, use its moratorium of nuclear and ballistic missile tests to find middle ground with South Korea and the United States,” Cheong said.

This year, North Korea officials, including young leader Kim Jong Un, have repeatedly indicated an ICBM test, or something similar, could be coming, possibly as soon as April 15, the 105th birthday of North Korea’s founding president and celebrated annually as “the Day of the Sun”.

(Editing by Bill Tarrant)

Squeezing North Korea: old friends take steps to isolate regime

Friendship bridge between China and North Korea

By Ju-min Park and Tony Munroe

SEOUL (Reuters) – From kicking out North Korean workers and ending visa-free travel for its citizens, to stripping flags of convenience from its ships, Cold War-era allies from Poland to Mongolia are taking measures to squeeze the isolated country.

More such moves, with prodding from South Korea and the United States, are expected after North Korea recently defied U.N. resolutions to conduct its fifth nuclear test.

North Korea’s limited global links leave most countries with few targets for penalizing the regime on their own.

Mounting sanctions over the years have made Pyongyang more adept at evasion and finding alternative sources for procurement, a recent paper by experts at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found.

Nonetheless, South Korea has been especially active in pushing the North’s allies for unilateral action in hopes of reining in Pyongyang’s arms program.

“If long-standing friends of North Korea continue to publicly curb their ties with the country, Pyongyang will have fewer places overseas where its illicit networks can operate unhindered or with political cover from the host capital,” said Andrea Berger, deputy director of the proliferation and nuclear policy program at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

South Korean officials have declined to say whether they have made inducements to countries to punish North Korea.

“Presumably in the course of that diplomatic interaction it is also being made clear to Pyongyang’s partners that deeper trade ties with economies like South Korea will not be fully realizable” without taking steps against North Korea, Berger said.

Angola, for one, has suspended all commercial trade with Pyongyang, banning North Korean companies from operating there since the U.N. toughened sanctions in March, a South Korean foreign ministry official told Reuters recently.

Angola was suspected of buying military equipment in 2011 from North Korea’s Green Pine Associated Corp, which is under U.N. sanction, according to a 2016 U.N. report. North Korea had also cooperated with Angola in health care, IT and construction, South Korea’s embassy there said in December.

Angolan officials did not respond to requests for comment, but the country told the U.N. in July it had not imported any light weapons from North Korea in recent years.

North Korea’s export of cheap labor has also been targeted.

Earlier this year, Washington urged countries to curb the use of North Korean workers, who number roughly 50,000 and generate between $1.2 billion and $2.3 billion annually for Pyongyang, according to a 2015 U.N. report.

Poland, which hosted as many as 800 North Korean workers, according to some estimates, this year stopped renewing visas, as did Malta.

Travel restrictions have also increased, with Ukraine recently revoking a Soviet-era deal that allowed visa-free visits for North Koreans.

Singapore, which has been a hub for North Korea-linked trade, will require visitors from the country to apply for visas starting next month, its immigration authority said in July.

DE-FLAGGED

The vast majority of North Korea’s trade is with China, and experts warn sanctions will have limited impact without Beijing’s backing. China condemns Pyongyang’s nuclear program but is also its chief ally and is unwilling to pressure leader Kim Jong Un’s regime too far, fearing a collapse that would destabilize the entire region. That means agreeing significantly tightened U.N. sanctions could be difficult.

Some of the most tangible results of recent efforts to isolate North Korea have seen countries ban its ships from their registries. North Korean-owned vessels are suspected of using other flags to camouflage the movement of illicit cargo.

Landlocked Mongolia, which is among Pyongyang’s steadiest allies but also has close ties with Seoul, canceled the registrations of all 14 North Korean vessels flying its flag, according to a report it submitted to the U.N. in July, even though sanctions compelled it to act on just one of them.

Cambodia, once the most popular flag of convenience for North Korea, ended its registry scheme for all foreign ships in August, although it did not single out North Korea.

The flags of 69 North Korean ships, none of them on a U.N. blacklist, have been de-registered since the U.N. tightened sanctions in March, South Korea’s foreign minister said last month. The North’s merchant fleet is estimated by the U.N. at roughly 240 vessels.

Still, one-off measures by various countries mean Pyongyang can simply shift its business elsewhere – a shortcoming of unilateral actions in general.

China and Russia employ the bulk of North Korean workers and have publicly shown no inclination to halt the practice.

Last week, North Korean state media announced the Sept 19 “inauguration” of its embassy in the Belarusian capital Minsk. However, on Monday, the Belarus foreign ministry said there was no North Korean embassy there, although it did not immediately give further information.

Pyongyang has been known to use diplomatic personnel, several whom have been caught with large amounts of gold or cash, to procure banned equipment or fund illegal activities.

China, experts say, remains the key.

“Rather than being efficient, unilateral actions put psychological pressure on the North,” said Chang Yong-seok, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University. “But like criminal gangs, North Korea won’t cringe much under psychological pressure.”

(Additional reporting by Andrei Makhovsky in Minsk, Herculano Coroado in Luanda and Prak Chan Thul in Phnom Penh; Editing by Lincoln Feast)