Tag Archives: Nuclear Weapons

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)

North Korea warns of ‘bigger gift package’ for U.S. after latest test

FILE PHOTO: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches the test of a new-type anti-aircraft guided weapon system organised by the Academy of National Defence Science in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) May 28, 2017. KCNA/via REUTERS

By Ju-min Park and Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised the test of a new ballistic missile controlled by a precision guidance system and ordered the development of more powerful strategic weapons, the North’s official KCNA news agency reported on Tuesday.

The missile launched on Monday was equipped with an advanced automated pre-launch sequence compared with previous versions of the “Hwasong” rockets, North Korea’s name for its Scud-class missiles, KCNA said. That indicated the North had launched a modified Scud-class missile, as South Korea’s military has said.

The North’s test launch of a short-range ballistic missile landed in the sea off its east coast and was the latest in a fast-paced series of missile tests defying international pressure and threats of more sanctions.

Kim said the reclusive state would develop more powerful weapons in multiple phases in accordance with its timetable to defend North Korea against the United States.

“He expressed the conviction that it would make a greater leap forward in this spirit to send a bigger ‘gift package’ to the Yankees” in retaliation for American military provocation, KCNA quoted Kim as saying.

South Korea said it had conducted a joint drill with a U.S. supersonic B-1B Lancer bomber on Monday. North Korea’s state media earlier accused the United States of staging a drill to practise dropping nuclear bombs on the Korean peninsula.

The U.S. Navy said its aircraft carrier strike group, led by the USS Carl Vinson, also planned a drill with another U.S. nuclear carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, in waters near the Korean peninsula.

A U.S. Navy spokesman in South Korea did not give specific timing for the strike group’s planned drill.

North Korea calls such drills a preparation for war.

Monday’s launch followed two successful tests of medium-to-long-range missiles in as many weeks by the North, which has been conducting such tests at an unprecedented pace in an effort to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of hitting the mainland United States.

Such launches, and two nuclear tests since January 2016, have been conducted in defiance of U.S. pressure, U.N. resolutions and the threat of more sanctions.

They also pose one of the greatest security challenges for U.S. President Donald Trump, who portrayed the latest missile test as an affront to China.

“North Korea has shown great disrespect for their neighbor, China, by shooting off yet another ballistic missile … but China is trying hard!” Trump said on Twitter.

PRECISION GUIDANCE

Japan has also urged China to play a bigger role in restraining North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s top national security adviser, Shotaro Yachi, met China’s top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, for five hours of talks near Tokyo on Monday after the North’s latest test.

Yachi told Yang that North Korea’s actions had reached a new level of provocation.

“Japan and China need to work together to strongly urge North Korea to avoid further provocative actions and obey things like United Nations resolutions,” Yachi was quoted as telling Yang in a statement by Japan’s foreign ministry.

A statement from China’s foreign ministry after the meeting made no mention of North Korea.

North Korea has claimed major advances with its rapid series of launches, claims that outside experts and officials believe may be at least partially true but are difficult to verify independently.

A South Korean military official said the North fired one missile on Monday, clarifying an earlier assessment that there may have been more than one launch.

The test was aimed at verifying a new type of precision guidance system and the reliability of a new mobile launch vehicle under different operational conditions, KCNA said.

However, South Korea’s military and experts questioned the claim because the North had technical constraints, such as a lack of satellites, to operate a terminal-stage missile guidance system properly.

“Whenever news of our valuable victory is broadcast recently, the Yankees would be very much worried about it and the gangsters of the south Korean puppet army would be dispirited more and more,” KCNA cited leader Kim as saying.

(Reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park; Additional reporting by James Pearson in SEOUL, Ben Blanchard in BEIJING, and Elaine Lies in TOKYO; Editing by Dan Grebler and Paul Tait)

Trump calls North Korea leader ‘madman’ who cannot be let on the loose: transcript

U.S. President Donald Trump arrives at the Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport in Rome, Italy, May 23, 2017. REUTERS/Remo Casilli

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a call last month with the Philippines’ president, U.S. President Donald Trump described North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un as a “madman with nuclear weapons” who could not be let on the loose, according to a leaked Philippine transcript of their call.

Trump told Duterte in the April 29 call that the United States would “take care of North Korea,” and had a lot of firepower in the region, although it did not want to use it, according to a transcript of their conversation published by the Washington Post and the investigative news site The Intercept.

The document included a “confidential” cover sheet from the Americas division of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs.

A senior U.S. official said the Trump administration did not dispute the accuracy of the transcript and declined to comment further.

Trump requested Duterte’s help in impressing on China, North Korea’s neighbor and only major ally, the need for it to help rein in Kim, the transcript showed.

“We can’t let a madman with nuclear weapons let on the loose like that,” Trump said. “We have a lot of firepower, more than he has, times 20, but we don’t want to use it.”

The U.S. president told Duterte that Washington had sent two nuclear submarines to waters off the Korean peninsula, comments likely to raise further questions about his handling of sensitive information after U.S. officials said Trump discussed intelligence about Islamic State with Russian officials this month.

“We have two submarines – the best in the world. We have two nuclear submarines, not that we want to use them at all,” Trump said.

The Philippines foreign ministry said earlier in a statement that it had no comment on news reports about the leaked transcript.

But it said that under Philippine law there was “criminal and civil liability attached to the hacking, unauthorized disclosure and use of illegally or inadvertently obtained confidential government documents.”

The ministry said it valued the need for transparency, but the release of some information could affect national security and regional stability. “As such, we appeal to the sense of responsibility and patriotism of all concerned,” it added.

North Korea has vowed to develop a nuclear-tipped missile that can strike the U.S. mainland, presenting Trump with perhaps his biggest foreign policy challenge.

It has conducted dozens of missile launches and two nuclear bomb tests since the start of last year.

Trump has said “a major, major conflict” with North Korea is possible and that all options are on the table, but his administration says it wants to resolve the crisis diplomatically with the aid of tougher sanctions.

On May 1, just after the call with Duterte, Trump said he would be “honored” to meet Kim Jong Un, under the right conditions.

According to the transcript, Trump said he hoped China would act to solve the North Korea problem.

“They really have the means because a great degree of their stuff comes through China,” Trump said. “They (Beijing) are doing certain things, like not accepting calls. But if China doesn’t do it, we will do it,” Trump said, having asked Duterte if he thought China had influence over Kim.

Trump said Kim had the “powder” – an apparent reference to North Korea’s nuclear capability – “but he doesn’t have the delivery system.”

“All his rockets are crashing. That’s the good news. But eventually when he gets that delivery system,” Trump said without finishing his sentence.

While North Korea missile tests have frequently failed, Trump and Duterte spoke before an apparently successful test of a long-range missile this month.

Western experts say that test appeared to have advanced North Korea’s aim of developing a missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, although the capability was probably still several years away.

The director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, General Vincent Stewart, said on Tuesday that if left unchecked, North Korea was on an “inevitable” path to obtaining a nuclear-armed missile capable of striking the United States.

In a show of force, the United States has sent the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Carl Vinson to waters off the Korean peninsula, where it joined the Michigan, a nuclear submarine that docked in South Korea in April.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom, Matt Spetalnick in WASHINGTON and Karen Lema in MANILA; editing by Nick Macfie and Jonathan Oatis)

North Korea, if left unchecked, on ‘inevitable’ path to nuclear ICBM: U.S.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats (L) and Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on worldwide threats, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., May 23, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – North Korea, if left unchecked, is on an “inevitable” path to obtaining a nuclear-armed missile capable of striking the United States, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart told a Senate hearing on Tuesday.

The remarks are the latest indication of mounting U.S. concern about Pyongyang’s advancing missile and nuclear weapons programs, which the North says are needed for self-defense.

U.S. lawmakers pressed Stewart and the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats to estimate how far away North Korea was from obtaining an intercontinental ballistic missile(ICBM) that could reach the United States.

They repeatedly declined to offer an estimate, saying that doing so would reveal U.S. knowledge about North Korea’s capabilities, but Stewart warned the panel the risk was growing.

“If left on its current trajectory the regime will ultimately succeed in fielding a nuclear-armed missile capable of threatening the United States homeland,” Stewart said.

“While nearly impossible to predict when this capability will be operational, the North Korean regime is committed and is on a pathway where this capability is inevitable.”

The U.N. Security Council is due to meet on Tuesday behind closed doors to discuss Sunday’s test of a solid-fuel Pukguksong-2 missile, which defies Security Council resolutions and sanctions. The meeting was called at the request of the United States, Japan and South Korea.

INTELLIGENCE GAPS

John Schilling, a missile expert contributing to Washington’s 38 North think tank, estimated it would take until at least 2020 for North Korea to be able to develop an ICBM capable of reaching the U.S. mainland and until 2025 for one powered by solid fuel.

But Coats acknowledged gaps in U.S. intelligence about North Korea and the thinking of its leader Kim Jong Un.

He cited technological factors complicating U.S. intelligence gathering, including gaps in U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), which rely on assets like spy satellites and drone aircraft.

“We do not have constant, consistent ISR capabilities and so there are gaps, and the North Koreans know about these,” Coats said.

Washington has been trying to persuade China to agree to new sanctions on North Korea, which has conducted dozens of missile firings and tested two nuclear bombs since the start of last year.

New data on Tuesday showed China raised its imports of iron ore from North Korea in April to the highest since August 2014 but bought no coal for a second month after Beijing halted coal shipments from its increasingly isolated neighbor.

U.S. President Donald Trump has warned that a “major, major conflict” with North Korea is possible over its weapons programs, although U.S. officials say tougher sanctions, not military force, are the preferred option.

Trump’s defense secretary, Jim Mattis, said on Friday any military solution to the North Korea crisis would be “tragic on an unbelievable scale.”

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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

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

By Michelle Nichols

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Phil Stewart and David Brunnstrom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RE-ENTRY CAPABILITY?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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

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

By Ju-min Park

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

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

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

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

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

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

The North’s committee said it would fail.

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Phil Stewart and Andrius Sytas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BALTIC FEARS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Robert Birsel)