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U.S. bombers fly over South Korea for second time since North’s nuclear test

By Yoo Han-bin

OSAN, South Korea (Reuters) – Two U.S. supersonic bombers flew over South Korea on Wednesday, with one of them landing at an air base 40 km (25 miles) south of the capital, the second such flight since North Korea’s Sept. 9 nuclear test.

U.S. Forces Korea said the flight by a pair of B-1B Lancer strategic bombers based in Guam was a show of force and of U.S. commitment to preserve the security of the peninsula and the region.

The United States, which has about 28,500 troops in South Korea, flew two B-1 bombers on Sept. 13 escorted by U.S. and South Korean fighter jets in a show of solidarity with Seoul.

The North condemned the earlier flight as an armed provocation that mobilized “ill-famed nuclear killing tools”. It did not immediately respond to Wednesday’s flight.

The U.S. Air Force said the Wednesday flight was the closest ever to North Korea by a B-1 bomber.

“Today marks the first time the airframe has landed on the Korean peninsula in 20 years, as well as conducting the closest flight near North Korea ever,” the U.S. Air Force said on its website which also showed a B-1B bomber landing at the base in South Korea.

The South’s Yonhap news agency said the aircraft flew over a U.S. live-fire training site in the Pocheon area bordering the North.

North Korea has ignored global condemnation of its fifth nuclear test on Sept. 9, and this week said it had successfully tested a new rocket engine that would be used to launch satellites, again in violation of U.N. sanctions.

The leaders of the United States and China, which is the North’s main diplomatic ally and economic benefactor, condemned the latest nuclear test and pledged to step up cooperation at the United Nations and in law enforcement channels.

CHINA URGES RESTRAINT

U.N. diplomats say the two countries have begun discussions on a possible U.N. resolution in response to the latest nuclear test, but China has not said directly whether it would support tougher steps against North Korea.

China, which has objected to a planned U.S. deployment of a THAAD missile defense system in the South to counter the North’s missile threat, called on “all parties to exercise restraint and to avoid any actions that could further escalate tensions”.

South Korea’s prime minister, Hwang Kyo-ahn, told parliament South Korea wanted existing U.N. sanctions against the North tightened by removing loopholes that allow it to trade in minerals if it is for subsistence.

North Korea has been testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles at an unprecedented rate this year, beginning with its fourth nuclear test in January and including the launch of a satellite in February that was widely seen as a test of long-range ballistic missile technology.

The North’s test of a new rocket engine for satellite launchers this week was believed to be part of a long-range missile program, according to the South’s military.

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, ordered preparations for the launch of a satellite “as soon as possible” on the basis of the successful test, its state media reported.

North Korea this month fired three missiles that flew about 1,000 km (600 miles), and in August tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile that experts said showed considerable progress.

It also launched an intermediate-range missile in June that experts said marked a technological advance for the isolated state after several failed tests.

South Korean Defence Minister Han Min-koo told parliament the North was developing all types of missiles, from short- to long-range, and its advances were “considerable”.

(Refiles to clarify the flight was the closest to border by a B-1 bomber in paragraph five)

(Additional reporting by James Pearson in Seoul and Michael Martina in Beijing; Writing by Ju-min Park, Jack Kim; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

Top diplomats from U.S., Japan, South Korea to meet on North Korea

World leaders from US, Japan, and South Korea

By Tony Munroe and Ben Blanchard

SEOUL/BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts in New York on Sunday to discuss responses to North Korea’s latest nuclear test, South Korea’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

The three countries are pushing for tough new U.N. Security Council sanctions on North Korea after the isolated country on Friday conducted its fifth and largest nuclear test.

The blast was in defiance of U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March.

China, the North’s chief ally, backed the March resolution but is more resistant to harsh new sanctions this time after the United States and South Korea decided to deploy a sophisticated anti-missile system in the South, which China adamantly opposes.

South Korea said Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and his counterparts Kerry and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida will meet during the annual U.N. General Assembly to discuss putting further pressure on North Korea.

The United States wants China to do more, with U.S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter last week singling out the role he said China should play in curbing its neighbor.

TESTING TIMES

North Korea has been testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles at an unprecedented rate this year under young leader Kim Jong Un.

On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke with South Korea’s Yun by phone, expressing Beijing’s opposition to the North’s latest nuclear test but also reiterating opposition to the planned deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THADD) anti-missile system in the South, China’s foreign ministry said.

China is North Korea’s most important diplomatic and trade partner and refuses to cut the country off completely, fearing it could collapse.

Beijing’s official People’s Daily newspaper on Wednesday called the United States a troublemaker and said it has no right to lecture China about taking responsibility for reining in North Korea as tensions on the peninsula are a direct result of U.S. actions.

In a commentary, the ruling Communist Party’s official paper said the United States was pretending it had nothing to do with the North Korea issue and was putting the blame on others.

“People have reason to doubt whether Washington is willing to make the effort to push the North Korea issue in the direction of a resolution,” the paper said.

China and Russia have pushed for a resumption of six party talks on denuclearization in North Korea. The talks, which also involve Japan, South Korea and the United States, have been on hold since 2008.

Washington has said it is willing to negotiate with the North if it the country commits to denuclearization, which Pyongyang has refused to do.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will seek Cuba’s help in responding to North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs during a rare visit to Havana next week, a spokesman said.

(Editing by Lincoln Feast)

North Korea ready for another nuclear test any time: South Korea

By Ju-min Park and Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea is ready to conduct an additional nuclear test at any time, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said on Monday, three days after the reclusive North’s fifth test drew widespread condemnation.

Pyongyang set off its most powerful nuclear blast to date on Friday, saying it had mastered the ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile and ratcheting up a threat that its rivals and the United Nations have been powerless to contain.

“Assessment by South Korean and U.S. intelligence is that the North is always ready for an additional nuclear test in the Punggye-ri area,” the site of the North’s five nuclear explosions, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun told a news briefing.

“North Korea has a tunnel where it can conduct an additional nuclear test,” Moon said.

South Korea is pushing for more sanctions against Pyongyang to close what it says were loopholes left in the last United Nations Security Council resolution adopted in March.

Both China and Russia backed sanctions imposed in March following the North’s January nuclear test, but their apparent ambivalence about fresh sanctions cast doubt on the Security Council’s ability to quickly form a consensus.

“We expect that China, as one of the Security Council member states, should take this issue seriously and play a very constructive role to come up with a very effective and strong sanctions resolution,” a South Korean foreign ministry official said.

NEW SANCTIONS?

The Security Council denounced the latest test on Friday and said it would begin work immediately on a resolution. The United States, Britain and France – three of the five veto-wielding permanent members – pushed for the 15-member body to impose new sanctions.

However, China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said sanctions alone could not solve the North Korean nuclear issue. The crux of the issue lay with the United States, not China, she added.

On Saturday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said a “creative” response was needed.

Speaking to Lavrov on Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China “strongly urged North Korea and other relevant parties to remain calm and exercise restraint, and not take any new steps to intensify tensions”, China’s Foreign Ministry said.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Lavrov and Wang condemned North Korea’s latest nuclear test in a phone conversation on Monday. Russia and China are the remaining veto powers on the Security Council.

As tensions rose on the Korean peninsula in the week of last week’s test, South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye said that North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles posed an “imminent threat.

“As North Korea has publicly said nuclear warheads have been standardized and customized to mount on ballistic missiles, we should keep in mind that North Korea’s nuclear missiles are a realistic, imminent threat targeting us, not a simple threat for negotiations,” Park said in a meeting with major political party leaders.

Pyongyang’s assertions that it is able to miniaturize a nuclear warhead have never been independently verified.

BOMBER FLIGHT DELAYED

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, formerly the country’s chief nuclear negotiator, arrived in Beijing on Monday and was seen entering the country’s embassy, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported.

Ri left Pyongyang on Monday to attend a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement countries in Venezuela and later the U.N. General Assembly, the North’s official KCNA news agency said.

A U.S. special envoy for the isolated state, Sung Kim, will travel to Seoul on Monday. Kim met Japanese officials on Sunday and said the United States may launch unilateral sanctions against North Korea, echoing comments by U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday in the wake of the test.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that bad weather had delayed the flight of an advanced U.S. B-1B bomber to the Korean peninsula, a show of strength and solidarity with ally Seoul, scheduled for Monday.

The flight from the U.S. base in Guam would now take place on Tuesday, a U.S. Forces in Korea official told Reuters, declining to identify the type of aircraft involved.

A group of 31 South Korean conservative lawmakers said the country should have nuclear weapons, either by acquiring its own arms or asking the Americans to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons that were withdrawn from the South under a 1991 pact for the decentralization of the peninsula.

“We should discuss every plan including an independent nuclear armament program at the level of self-defense to safeguard peace,” Won Yoo-chul, a senior lawmaker for the ruling Saenuri Party, said in a statement.

South Korea’s defense ministry said there was no change in its policy barring nuclear weapons.

(Additional reporting by John Ruwitch in Shanghai and Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Alex Richardson)

North Korea says decision on nuclear test depends on U.S.: Yonhap

North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that whether it conducted another nuclear test depended on the behavior of the United States, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

The minister, Ri Yong Ho, said, however, that the United States had destroyed the possibility of a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January, triggering tough new international sanctions. South Korean officials and experts believe it can conduct a fifth test at any time.

“Any additional nuclear test depends on the position of the United States,” Yonhap quoted Ri as telling reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Laos.

Ri added that North Korea was a responsible nuclear state and repeated its position that it would not use atomic arms unless threatened.

“We will not recklessly resort to its use in the absence of substantive threat, unless we are threatened by invasion by another nuclear-power state,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, Elizabeth Trudeau, repeated a U.S. call for North Korea to take “concrete steps” to meet its international obligations – a reference to its past commitments to abandon its nuclear-weapons program.

“We call on North Korea to refrain from actions and rhetoric that further destabilize the region,” she added at a regular briefing when asked about Ri’s comments.

Ri said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had called for a peace treaty with the United States to replace the armistice at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War and the removal of all U.S. troops and equipment from the South.

“This, we believe, is the only way,” Yonhap quoted him as saying.

In earlier remarks to the ASEAN conference, Ri said North Korea had made “an inevitable strategic decision that there is no other option but facing with nuclear deterrent the never ending nuclear blackmails of the U.S.”

North Korea has responded to the latest sanctions with defiance, conducting a series of rocket and missile tests in spite of repeated international condemnation.

(Reporting by Jack Kim and James Pearson in Seoul, Simon Webb in Vientiane and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt and James Dalgleish)

North Korea diplomat expected to attend China forum with U.S. envoy

SEOUL (Reuters) – A North Korean diplomat who was part of the so-called six-party talks aimed at ending the country’s nuclear program arrived on Monday in China, where she is expected to attend a forum in which the U.S. nuclear envoy will take part, Japan’s Kyodo news agency said.

If the diplomat does take part, it would be a rare gathering of experts from the six countries, coming weeks after Chinese President Xi Jinping said he would like to see the six-party talks resume.

Isolated North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch the following month in defiance of U.N. resolutions, prompting the U.N. Security Council to impose new sanctions.

China, reclusive North Korea’s only major ally, has been angered by its nuclear and missile programs. Xi said in April China wanted to see a resumption of the six-party talks, which have been stalled since 2008.

The North Korean diplomat, Choe Son Hui, is deputy director-general of the North Korean Foreign Ministry’s U.S. affairs bureau, according to South Korea. She was a delegate to the stop-start six-party nuclear talks, hosted by China.

Choe was expected to attend the closed-door Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue in Beijing, hosted by the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California, San Diego, Kyodo said.

The annual dialogue is an informal multilateral conference attended by government officials and scholars from the United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia and China, the five countries involved in the six-party talks along with North Korea.

“We hope that this conference can make a meaningful inquiry into the relevant cooperation issues in northeast Asia,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing.

The U.S. State Department said last week that Sung Kim, the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, would attend the forum in Beijing. Kyodo said Japan may also send its top nuclear negotiator.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Monday that Kim has no plans to meet with his North Korean counterparts during the session.

It was unclear if Choe would hold separate meetings with officials from other countries.

Choe attended a security conference in 2012 in China, but no representatives from North Korea have taken part since, according to the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation.

The visit comes after career diplomat Ri Su Yong, one of North Korea’s highest-profile officials, visited China and held a rare meeting with Xi.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park, additional reporting by Megha Rajagopalan in Beijing and Warren Strobel in Washington; Editing by Nick Macfie and Steve Orlofsky)

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