Tag Archives: Pyongyang

North Korea preparing long-range missile test: RIA cites Russian lawmaker

North Korea preparing long-range missile test: RIA cites Russian lawmaker

By Jack Stubbs

MOSCOW (Reuters) – North Korea is preparing to test a long-range missile which it believes can reach the west coast of the United States, a Russian lawmaker just returned from a visit to Pyongyang was quoted as saying on Friday.

Anton Morozov, a member of the Russian lower house of parliament’s international affairs committee, and two other Russian lawmakers visited Pyongyang on Oct. 2-6, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.

“They are preparing for new tests of a long-range missile. They even gave us mathematical calculations that they believe prove that their missile can hit the west coast of the United States,” RIA quoted Morozov as saying.

“As far as we understand, they intend to launch one more long-range missile in the near future. And in general, their mood is rather belligerent.”

Tensions have risen in recent weeks over North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs as Pyongyang has test-fired several missiles and conducted what it said was a test explosion of a hydrogen bomb as it advances toward its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

Morozov’s comments drove up the price of U.S. Treasury bonds, as investors, worried about the prospect of new North Korean missile tests, moved into assets the market views as a safe haven in times of uncertainty.

Reuters was not able to independently verify Morozov’s account, and he did not specify which North Korean officials had given him the information about the planned test.

In Washington, a U.S. official said that there had been indications that North Korea could be preparing for a missile test on or around Oct. 10, the anniversary of the founding of the ruling Korean Workers Party and a day after the Columbus Day holiday in the United States.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not disclose the type of missile that could be tested and cautioned that North Korea in the past has not staged launches despite indications that it would.

A senior CIA analyst, speaking at a conference in Washington this week, said the North Korean government likely would stage some kind of provocation on Oct. 10 but did not elaborate on what form it might take.

“There is a clarity of purpose in what (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Un is doing. I don’t think he’s done,” said Yong Suk Lee, the deputy assistant director of the CIA’s Korea Mission Center, which was set up this year. “In fact, I told my own staff (that) October 10th is the Korean Workers Party founding day. That’s Tuesday in North Korea, but Monday – the Columbus Day holiday – in the United States. So stand by your phones.”

Morozov’s delegation had “high-level” meetings in Pyongyang, RIA news agency said, citing the Russian embassy in the North Korean capital.

Tensions over North Korea’s nuclear program have been running high in recent weeks since Pyongyang staged a series of missile tests, and conducted a text explosion on Sept. 3 of what it said was a hydrogen bomb.

There has also been an exchange of tough rhetoric between Pyongyang and Washington.

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea if it threatens the United States. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un responded by calling Trump deranged and saying he would pay dearly for his threat.

China, North Korea’s main ally, has backed sanctions against Pyongyang and on Saturday in response to the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said it backed a worldwide ban on nuclear weapons.

“China has always supported a complete and total ban on nuclear weapons, but also believes that the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament cannot be achieved overnight and must advance gradually within the existing disarmament mechanism. China is willing to work with all parties to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world,” said China’s foreign ministry.

“BELLICOSE RHETORIC”

Morozov is a member of the LDPR, a right-wing populist party. It casts itself as an opposition party, but hews close to the Kremlin line on matters of international affairs.

Describing meetings with North Korean officials, Morozov said they “displayed serious determination and bellicose rhetoric,” RIA reported.

“The situation, of course, demands the swiftest intervention of all interested states, particularly those represented in the region, in order to prevent wide-scale military action,” the agency quoted him as saying.

Russia has closer relations with Pyongyang than many other world powers, linked in part to Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea and the current leader’s grand-father, having lived for a time in the Soviet Union.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has joined other world powers in condemning North Korea’s weapons program, but has taken a softer line than Western governments.

Putin has said that Pyongyang will not be cowed into giving up its weapons program. He has accused Washington of trying to effect regime change in North Korea, and predicted that would unleash chaos.

U.S. Treasury prices surged on the report of a possible new missile test, pulling yields lower, as investors cut risk out of their portfolios and sought the safety of Treasuries. Treasury prices move inversely to their yields.

Benchmark 10 year U.S. Treasury yields fell from the session high 2.40 percent mark <US10YT=TWEB> to 2.35 percent around midday (1600 GMT) in New York.

“It has just been risk-off buying into the long (Columbus Day) weekend … You look at the charts, it has really been a one-way trade of lower yields,” said Justin Lederer, Treasury analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald in New York.

(Reporting by Jack Stubbs; Additional reporting by Daniel Bases in New York and Idrees Ali and Jonathan Landay in Washington, Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Toby Chopra and James Dalgleish)

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)

North Korea seen moving missiles from development center: South Korean broadcaster

North Korea seen moving missiles from development center: South Korean broadcaster

SEOUL (Reuters) – Several North Korean missiles were recently spotted moved from a rocket facility in the capital Pyongyang, South Korea’s Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) reported late Friday amid speculation that the North was preparing to take more provocative actions.

The report cited an unnamed intelligence source saying South Korean and U.S. intelligence officials detected missiles being transported away from North Korea’s Missile Research and Development Facility at Sanum-dong in the northern part of Pyongyang.

The report did not say when or where they had been moved.

The missiles could be either intermediate range Hwasong-12 or intercontinental ballistic Hwasong-14 missiles, according to the report, though the missile facility at Sanum-dong has been dedicated to the production of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

A source from South Korea’s defense ministry said he could not confirm details of the report or whether there has been any unusual activities in the area mentioned.

South Korean official have voiced concerns that North Korea could conduct more provocative acts near the anniversary of the founding of its communist party on Oct. 10, or possibly when China holds its Communist Party Congress on Oct. 18.

Amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula, South Korea and U.S. forces recently held their first joint short range air defense training exercise in South Korea, according to a statement released by the U.S. Pacific Command on Friday.

The statement did not give the date of the exercise, but said the next exercise is scheduled to take place over the next few months as the two forces become more familiar with each other’s capabilities.

(Reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Richard Pullin)

Trump: military option for North Korea not preferred, but would be ‘devastating’

Trump: military option for North Korea not preferred, but would be 'devastating'

By Steve Holland and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump warned North Korea on Tuesday that any U.S. military option would be “devastating” for Pyongyang, but said the use of force was not Washington’s first option to deal with the country’s ballistic and nuclear weapons program.

“We are totally prepared for the second option, not a preferred option,” Trump said at a White House news conference, referring to military force. “But if we take that option, it will be devastating, I can tell you that, devastating for North Korea. That’s called the military option. If we have to take it, we will.”

Bellicose statements by Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in recent weeks have created fears that a miscalculation could lead to action with untold ramifications, particularly since Pyongyang conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3.

Despite the increased tension, the United States has not detected any change in North Korea’s military posture reflecting an increased threat, the top U.S. military officer said on Tuesday.

The assessment by Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, about Pyongyang’s military stance was in contrast to a South Korean lawmaker who said Pyongyang had boosted defenses on its east coast.

“While the political space is clearly very charged right now, we haven’t seen a change in the posture of North Korean forces, and we watch that very closely,” Dunford told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his reappointment to his post.

In terms of a sense of urgency, “North Korea certainly poses the greatest threat today,” Dunford testified.

A U.S. official speaking on the condition of anonymity said satellite imagery had detected a small number of North Korean military aircraft moving to the North’s east coast. However the official said the activity did not change their assessment of Pyongyang’s military posture.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho on Monday accused Trump of declaring war on the North and threatened that Pyongyang would shoot down U.S. warplanes flying near the Korean Peninsula after American bombers flew close to it last Saturday. Ri was reacting to Trump’s Twitter comments that Kim and Ri “won’t be around much longer” if they acted on their threats toward the United States.

North Korea has been working to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the U.S. mainland, which Trump has said he will never allow. Dunford said Pyongyang will have a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile “soon,” and it was only a matter of a “very short time”.

“We clearly have postured our forces to respond in the event of a provocation or a conflict,” the general said, adding that the United States has taken “all proper measures to protect our allies” including South Korean and Japan.

“It would be an incredibly provocative thing for them to conduct a nuclear test in the Pacific as they have suggested, and I think the North Korean people would have to realize how serious that would be, not only for the United States but for the international community,” Dunford said.

South Korean lawmaker Lee Cheol-uoo, briefed by the country’s spy agency, said North Korea was bolstering its defenses by moving aircraft to its east coast and taking other measures after the flight by U.S. bombers. Lee said the United States appeared to have disclosed the flight route intentionally because North Korea seemed to be unaware.

U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers, escorted by fighter jets, flew east of North Korea in a show of force after the heated exchange of rhetoric between Trump and Kim.

The United States has imposed sanctions on 26 people as part of its non-proliferation designations for North Korea and nine banks, including some with ties to China, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office Of Foreign Assets Control Sanctions said on Tuesday.

The U.S. sanctions target people in North Korea and some North Korean nationals in China, Russia, Libya and Dubai, according to a list posted on the agency’s website.

‘CAPABILITY TO DETER’

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will visit China from Thursday to Saturday for talks with senior officials that will include the crisis over North Korea and trade, the State Department said on Tuesday.

Evans Revere, a former senior diplomat who met with a North Korean delegation in Switzerland this month, said that Pyongyang had been reaching out to “organizations and individuals” to encourage talks with former U.S. officials to get a sense of the Trump administration’s thinking.

“They’ve also been accepting invitations to attend dialogues hosted by others, including the Swiss and the Russians,” he said.

Revere said his best guess for why the North Koreans were doing this was because they were “puzzled by the unconventional way that President Trump has been handling the North Korea issue” and were eager to use “informal and unofficial meetings to gain a better understanding of what is motivating Trump and his administration”.

During a visit to India, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said diplomatic efforts continued.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said war on the Korean Peninsula would have no winner.

“We hope the U.S. and North Korean politicians have sufficient political judgment to realize that resorting to military force will never be a viable way to resolve the peninsula issue and their own concerns,” Lu said.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in urged Kim Jong Un to resume military talks and reunions of families split by the 1950-53 Korean War to ease tension.

“Like I’ve said multiple times before, if North Korea stops its reckless choices, the table for talks and negotiations always remains open,” Moon said.

In Moscow, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it was working behind the scenes to find a political solution and that it plans to hold talks with a representative of North Korea’s foreign ministry who is due to arrive in Moscow on Tuesday, the RIA news agency cited the North’s embassy to Russia as saying.

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

(Additional reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL, Christian Shepherd in BEIJING Michelle Nichols at the UNITED NATIONS, Dmitry Solovyov in MOSCOW, Malini Menon in NEW DELHI and Doina Chiacu, David Alexander, Susan Heavey, David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick in WASHINGTON; Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Grant McCool and James Dalgleish)

North Korea says U.S. ‘declared war’ warns it could shoot down U.S. bombers

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho walks to speak to the media outside the Millennium hotel New York, U.S., September 25, 2017.

By Michelle Nichols, Ben Blanchard and Christine Kim

UNITED NATIONS/BEIJING/SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea’s foreign minister said on Monday that President Donald Trump had declared war on North Korea and that Pyongyang reserves the right to take countermeasures, including shooting down U.S. bombers even if they are not in its air space.

“The whole world should clearly remember it was the U.S. who first declared war on our country,” Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told reporters in New York.

“Since the United States declared war on our country, we will have every right to make countermeasures, including the right to shoot down United States strategic bombers even when they are not inside the airspace border of our country,” Ri said.

“The question of who won’t be around much longer will be answered then,” Ri said in a direct reference to a Twitter post by Trump on Saturday.

The increasingly heated rhetoric between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is raising fears of a risk of a miscalculation by one side or the other that could have massive repercussions.

China called on Monday for all sides in the North Korea missile crisis to show restraint and not “add oil to the flames.”

Ri told the U.N. General Assembly on Saturday that targeting the U.S. mainland with its rockets was inevitable after “Mr Evil President” Trump called Kim a “rocket man” on a suicide mission.

“Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!” Trump said on Twitter on Saturday.

North Korea, which has pursued its missile and nuclear programs in defiance of international condemnation and economic sanctions, said it “bitterly condemned the reckless remarks” of Trump. They were an “intolerable insult to the Korean people” and a declaration of war, the North’s official news agency said on Monday.

Pyongyang accuses the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean war, of planning to invade and regularly threatens to destroy it and its Asian allies. The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because the 1950s conflict ended with a truce, not a peace treaty.

U.S. Treasury yields fell to session lows after Ri’s comments on Monday.

 

‘DERANGED’

In an unprecedented direct statement on Friday, Kim described Trump as a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” whom he would tame with fire.

Kim said North Korea would consider the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history” against the United States and that Trump’s comments had confirmed his nuclear program was “the correct path”.

Trump threatened in his maiden U.N. address last Tuesday to “totally destroy” the country of 26 million people if North Korea threatened the United States or its allies.

Asked how concerned China was the war of words between Trump and North Korea could get out of control, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang described the situation as highly complex and sensitive.

It was vitally important everyone strictly, fully and correctly implemented all North Korea related U.N. resolutions, Lu said, resolutions which call for both tighter sanctions and efforts to resume dialogue.

All sides should “not further irritate each other and add oil to the flames of the tense situation on the peninsula at present”, Lu told a daily news briefing.

“We hope all sides do not continue doing things to irritate each other and should instead exercise restraint.”

Speaking to British Prime Minister Theresa May by telephone, Chinese President Xi Jinping repeated Beijing’s position that the North Korean issue should be resolved peacefully via talks, state media said.

China hopes Britain can play a constructive role in easing the situation and pushing for a resumption in talks, Xi said. May, like some other U.S. allies, has pushed for China to do more on North Korea.

Downing Street said the two leaders agreed there was a particular responsibility for China and Britain, as permanent Security Council members, to help find a diplomatic solution.

North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear bomb test on Sept. 3. Pyongyang said on Friday it might test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean.

While China has been angered by North Korea’s repeated nuclear and missile tests, it has also called for the United States and its allies to help lessen tension by dialing back their military drills.

U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers escorted by fighters flew in international airspace over waters east of North Korea on Saturday in a show of force the Pentagon said indicated the range of military options available to Trump.

In response to a question about the exercises, Chinese spokesman Lu said: “A continued rise in tensions on the peninsula, I believe, is not in the interests of any side.”

Wang Jingdong, president of the world’s largest lender Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), told reporters during a briefing the bank will “strictly implement U.N. Security Council decisions related to North Korea and carefully fulfill relevant international responsibility”.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday said his decision to call a snap election would not distract his government from responding to North Korean threats.

 

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Ben Blanchard in Beijing and Christine Kim in Seoul; Additional reporting by Shu Zhang in Beijing, Elizabeth Piper in London and Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo; Writing by Philip Wen; Editing by Nick Macfie and Grant McCool)

 

Trump to add North Korea sanctions, allies call for strict enforcement

U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during his meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani during the U.N. General Assembly in New York, U.S., September 21,

By Steve Holland and David Brunnstrom

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday the United States will add more sanctions against North Korea, while U.S. allies have called for enforcing existing international sanctions as the best way to get Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program.

The sanctions are not expected to further target oil, a senior Trump administration official told Reuters.

Tensions have risen over North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests, despite intense pressure from world powers. The U.N. Security Council has unanimously imposed nine rounds of sanctions on North Korea since 2006, the latest earlier this month capping fuel supplies to the isolated state.

“We will be putting more sanctions on North Korea,” Trump said in response to a question at a meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in New York on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

Trump would make the announcement at lunch with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, officials said.

Trump said before the lunch that he and Moon were discussing trade issues and North Korea. “I think we’re making a lot of progress in a lot of ways,” Trump told reporters.

Moon, sitting with Trump and their respective delegations, said the U.S. president’s warning to Pyongyang in his speech at the U.N. on Tuesday “will also help to change North Korea.”

Trump warned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his address that the United States, if threatened, would “totally destroy” his country of 26 million people.

It was Trump’s most direct military threat to attack North Korea and his latest expression of concern about Pyongyang’s repeated launching of ballistic missiles over Japan and underground nuclear tests.

North Korea’s foreign minister likened Trump to a “barking dog” in response.

On Thursday, South Korea’s Moon said sanctions were needed to bring Pyongyang to the negotiating table and force it to give up its nuclear weapons, but Seoul was not seeking North Korea’s collapse.

“All of our endeavors are to prevent war from breaking out and maintain peace,” Moon said in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly. He said that Pyongyang’s nuclear issue “needs to be managed stably so that tensions will not become overly intensified and accidental military clashes will not destroy peace.”

Moon, a former human rights activist whom Trump has accused of appeasement towards North Korea, said: “We will not seek unification by absorption or artificial means.”

Moon said all countries must strictly adhere to U.N. sanctions on North Korea and impose tougher steps in the event of new provocations by Pyongyang.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will hold a news briefing at 3 p.m. (1900 GMT) in which he is expected to discuss the Trump administration’s sanctions announcement.

U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley will brief the news media at 4:30 p.m. (2030 GMT), the White House said.

In Geneva, North Korea told a U.N. rights panel that international sanctions would endanger the survival of North Korean children.

 

AID PLAN

South Korea approved a plan on Thursday to send $8 million worth of aid to North Korea, as China warned the crisis on the Korean peninsula was getting more serious by the day.

The last time the South had sent aid to the North was in December 2015 through the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) under former President Park Geun-hye.

North Korea conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3 and has launched numerous missiles this year, including two intercontinental ballistic missiles and two other rockets that flew over Japan.

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. The North accuses the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, of planning to invade and regularly threatens to destroy it and its Asian allies.

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

Last month, the Trump administration blacklisted 16 Chinese, Russian and Singaporean companies and people for trading with banned North Korean entities, including in coal, oil and metals. However, it did not sanction Chinese banks that experts and former U.S. officials say enable North Korea’s international trade, often by laundering funds through the United States.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told a news conference there “some indications” that sanctions were beginning to cause fuel shortages in North Korea.

 

(Reporting by Steve Holland and David Brunnstrom; additional reporting by Michelle Nichols and Susan Heavey; Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Grant McCool)

 

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)

 

Japan defense review warns of enhanced North Korea threats

Japan's Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera attends a news conference at Defence Ministry in Tokyo, Japan August 8, 2017. REUTERS/Issei Kato

By Kiyoshi Takenaka

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan warned on Tuesday against the acute threat posed by North Korea’s weapons programs as Pyongyang’s continued series of missile and nuclear tests, in defiance of U.N. sanctions, brings technological progress to the reclusive state.

Japan released its annual Defence White Paper after North Korea fired two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) last month on lofted trajectories to land off Japan’s west coast.

“It is conceivable that North Korea’s nuclear weapons program has already considerably advanced and it is possible that North Korea has already achieved the miniaturization of nuclear weapons and has acquired nuclear warheads,” the Defence Ministry said.

“Since last year, when it forcibly implemented two nuclear tests and more than 20 ballistic missile launches, the security threats have entered a new stage,” it added in the 563-page document.

North Korea’s latest ICBM test showed Pyongyang may now be able to reach most of the continental United States, two U.S. officials have told Reuters.

The growing threat has prompted Japanese municipalities to hold evacuation drills in case of a possible missile attack, and boosted demand for nuclear shelters.

Missiles launched on a lofted trajectory were difficult to intercept, the defense ministry said.

With North Korea pressing ahead with missile tests, a group of ruling party lawmakers led by Itsunori Onodera, who became defense minister on Thursday, urged Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in March to consider acquiring the capability to hit enemy bases.

If realized, that would be a drastic change in Japan’s defense posture. Tokyo has so far avoided taking the controversial and costly step of acquiring bombers or cruise missiles with the range to strike other countries.

“North Korea’s missiles represent a deepening threat. That, along with China’s continued threatening behavior in the East China Sea and South China Sea, is a major concern for Japan,” Onodera told a news briefing in Tokyo.

The ministry said the number of Japan’s jet scrambles against Chinese aircraft hit a record in the year to March 2017. The first confirmed advancement of China’s aircraft carrier to the Pacific also came in December 2016.

“There is a possibility that their naval activities, as well as air force activities, will pick up pace in the Sea of Japan from now on,” the ministry said.

“We need to keep a close eye on the Chinese naval force’s activity,” it added.

Tokyo’s ties with Beijing have long been plagued by a territorial dispute over a group of tiny, uninhabited East China Sea islets and the legacy of Japan’s wartime aggression.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi dismissed the white paper, telling state television in Manila, which he visited for a regional security meeting, that Japan was “playing the same old tune”.

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Additional reporting by Tim Kelly, and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Paul Tait and Clarence Fernandez)

China hits back at Trump criticism over North Korea

Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Hwasong-14 is pictured during its second test-fire in this undated picture provided by KCNA in Pyongyang

By Ben Blanchard and Elias Glenn

BEIJING (Reuters) – China hit back on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted he was “very disappointed” in China following Pyongyang’s latest missile test, saying the problem did not arise in China and that all sides need to work for a solution.

China has become increasingly frustrated with American and Japanese criticism that it should do more to rein in Pyongyang. China is North Korea’s closest ally, but Beijing is angry with its continued nuclear and missile tests.

North Korea said on Saturday it had conducted another successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile that proved its ability to strike the U.S. mainland, drawing a sharp warning from Trump and a rebuke from China.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke with Trump on Monday and agreed on the need for more action on North Korea just hours after the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations said Washington is “done talking about North Korea”.

A White House statement after the phone call said the two leaders “agreed that North Korea poses a grave and growing direct threat to the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and other countries near and far”.

It said Trump “reaffirmed our ironclad commitment” to defend Japan and South Korea from any attack, “using the full range of United States capabilities”.

Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday after the missile test that he was “very disappointed” in China and that Beijing profits from U.S. trade but had done “nothing” for the United States with regards to North Korea, something he would not allow to continue.

China’s Foreign Ministry, in a statement sent to Reuters responding to Trump’s tweets, said the North Korean nuclear issue did not arise because of China and that everyone needed to work together to seek a resolution.

“All parties should have a correct understanding of this,” it said, adding the international community widely recognized China’s efforts to seek a resolution.

The essence of Sino-U.S. trade is mutual benefit and win-win, with a vast amount of facts proving the healthy development of business and trade ties is good for both countries, the ministry added.

Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Qian Keming, weighed in too, telling a news conference there was no link between the North Korea issue and China-U.S. trade.

“We think the North Korea nuclear issue and China-US trade are issues that are in two completely different domains. They aren’t related. They should not be discussed together,” Qian said.

China, with which North Korea does the large majority of its trade, has repeatedly said it strictly follows U.N. resolutions on North Korea and has denounced unilateral U.S. sanctions as unhelpful.

Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement China must decide if it is willing to back imposing stronger U.N. sanctions on North Korea over Friday night’s long-range missile test, the North’s second this month.

Any new U.N. Security Council resolution “that does not significantly increase the international pressure on North Korea is of no value”, Haley said, adding that Japan and South Korea also needed to do more.

Abe told reporters after his conversation with Trump that repeated efforts by the international community to find a peaceful solution to the North Korean issue had yet to bear fruit in the face of Pyongyang’s unilateral “escalation”.

“International society, including Russia and China, need to take this seriously and increase pressure,” Abe said. He said Japan and the United States would take steps towards concrete action but did not give details.

Abe and Trump did not discuss military action against North Korea, nor what would constitute the crossing of a “red line” by Pyongyang, Deputy Chief Cabinet spokesman Koichi Hagiuda told reporters.

“Pyongyang is determined to develop its nuclear and missile program and does not care about military threats from the U.S. and South Korea,” state-run Chinese tabloid the Global Times said on Monday.

“How could Chinese sanctions change the situation?” said the paper, which is published by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily.

China wants both balanced trade with the United States and lasting peace on the Korean peninsula, its official Xinhua news agency added in a commentary.

“However, to realize these goals, Beijing needs a more cooperative partner in the White House, not one who piles blame on China for the United States’ failures,” it added.

The United States flew two supersonic B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force on Sunday in response to the missile test and the July 3 launch of the “Hwasong-14” rocket, the Pentagon said. The bombers took off from a U.S. air base in Guam and were joined by Japanese and South Korean fighter jets during the exercise.

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

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

 

(Additional reporting by Chang-ran Kim in TOKYO, Ben Blanchard and Elias Glenn in BEIJING, Christine Kim in SEOUL and Steve Holland in WASHINGTON; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Paul Tait and Michael Perry)

 

China says ‘China responsibility theory’ on North Korea has to stop

The intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-14 is seen in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang July 5, 2017. KCNA/via REUTERS

BEIJING (Reuters) – China hit back on Tuesday in unusually strong terms at repeated calls from the United States to put more pressure on North Korea, urging a halt to what it called the “China responsibility theory”, and saying all parties needed to pull their weight.

U.S President Trump took a more conciliatory tone at a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday, but he has expressed some impatience that China, with its close economic and diplomatic ties to Pyongyang, is not doing enough to rein in North Korea.

That feeling has become particularly acute since Pyongyang launched an intercontinental ballistic missile that some experts believe could have the range to reach Alaska, and parts of the U.S. West Coast.

Asked about calls from the United States, Japan and others for China to put more pressure on North Korea, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said it was not China ratcheting up tension and the key to a resolution did not lie with Beijing.

“Recently, certain people, talking about the Korean peninsula nuclear issue, have been exaggerating and giving prominence to the so-called ‘China responsibility theory,'” Geng told a daily news briefing, without naming any parties.

“I think this either shows lack of a full, correct knowledge of the issue, or there are ulterior motives for it, trying to shift responsibility,” he added.

China has been making unremitting efforts and has played a constructive role, but all parties have to meet each other half way, Geng said.

“Asking others to do work, but doing nothing themselves is not OK,” he added. “Being stabbed in the back is really not OK.”

While China has been angered by North Korea’s repeated nuclear and missile tests, it also blames the United States and South Korea for worsening tension with their military exercises.

China has been upset with the U.S. deployment of an advanced anti-missile system in South Korea too, which it says threatens its own security and will do nothing to ease tensions.

Additionally, Beijing has complained about Washington putting unilateral sanctions on Chinese companies and individuals for their dealings with North Korea.

Geng questioned how China’s efforts could bear fruit if, while it tried to put out the flames, others added oil to the fire, and if, while it enforced U.N. resolutions, others harmed its interests.

Everyone needed to accept their responsibilities to get the North Korea issue back on the correct track of a peaceful resolution through talks, he added.

“The ‘China responsibility theory’ on the peninsula nuclear issue can stop,” Geng said.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)