Tag Archives: Rex Tillerson

Despite Tillerson reassurance, Palestinians not stopping ‘martyr’ payments

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (L) meets with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Washington, U.S., May 3, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Ali Sawafta

RAMALLAH (Reuters) – Palestinian officials say there are no plans to stop payments to families of Palestinians killed or wounded carrying out attacks against Israelis, contradicting comments by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Tillerson told a Senate hearing on Tuesday he had received reassurances from President Mahmoud Abbas that the Palestinian Authority would end the practice of paying a monthly stipend to the families of suicide bombers and other attackers, commonly referred to by Palestinians as martyrs.

The issue of compensation has become a sticking point in efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, with Israeli officials citing it as one reason they do not regard Abbas as a “partner for peace”.

“They have changed their policy,” Tillerson said, referring to the Palestinians. “At least I have been informed they’ve changed that policy and their intent is to cease payments.”

But Palestinian officials said they were not aware of any change and that it was unlikely a policy that has been a cornerstone of social support for decades would be altered.

“There have been talks about making the payments in a different way, but not ending them,” said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on discussions held with the Americans.

“They could perhaps be labeled differently,” he said, suggesting the description “martyr” could be dropped, but he added: “They are not going to be stopped.”

The Palestinian Authority makes a variety of social security payments, mostly to families, for those convicted and imprisoned by Israel for fighting against the occupation and those killed in violence, whether they were carrying out suicide attacks, shot while throwing stones or in other circumstances.

Amounts vary depending on whether the person killed was married or had children. Those wounded also receive aid.

In total, some 35,000 families receive support from a dedicated fund established in the 1960s, including those living outside the Palestinian territories. Some estimates suggest the fund distributes as much as $100 million a year.

At the same time, there are 6,500 Palestinians in Israeli jails, including 500 detained without charge, in some cases for years. All of them, including around 300 children and 50 women, receive monthly support from the Palestinian Authority.

For Abbas, ending such payments would be politically fraught. Surveys show he is highly unpopular and that would only likely worsen if support were stopped. It would probably strengthen his rival in the Islamist group Hamas.

However, Abbas has taken some steps to stop payments in recent weeks, following meetings he held with President Donald Trump in Washington at the start of May and later the same month when the president visited the region.

Some 277 Palestinians released from Israeli jails under a prisoner-swap agreement and transported to the Gaza Strip, where Hamas is in charge, had their monthly stipends stopped, they told Reuters this month.

Yet that decision seemed more about cutting funds that may help Hamas in Gaza rather than responding to U.S. or Israeli demands to end payments to those who have carried out attacks.

Israeli officials said they had seen no evidence that the Palestinian Authority was stopping support.

“Israel is unaware of any change in the policy of the Palestinians, who continue to make payments to the families of terrorists,” an official said, describing the payments a form of incitement to carry out violence.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Luke Baker and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

U.S. student, said to be in coma, released by North Korea

Otto Frederick Warmbier (C), a University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea since early January, is taken to North Korea's top court in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo March 16, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo

By Eric Walsh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Otto Warmbier, a U.S. university student held captive in North Korea for 17 months, has been released, but a former U.S. official said on Tuesday he is in a coma and in urgent need of medical care.

Warmbier, 22, a University of Virginia student from suburban Cincinnati, was on his way back to the United States, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement.

“Otto has been in a coma for over a year now and urgently needs proper medical care in the United States,” said Bill Richardson, a veteran former diplomat and politician who has played a role in past negotiations with North Korea, said after speaking to Warmbier’s parents.

The family said they were told by North Korean officials, through contacts with American envoys, that Warmbier fell ill from botulism sometime after his March 2016 trial and lapsed into a coma after taking a sleeping pill, the Washington Post reported.

“In no uncertain terms North Korea must explain the causes of his coma,” Richardson, whose Center for Global Engagement had directly sought Warmbier’s release with the North Korean government, said in a statement.

Tillerson, at a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday, declined to comment on Warmbier’s condition. A person who answered the phone at Warmbier’s family’s Ohio residence said: “No comment, thank you” and hung up.

Warmbier’s release came as former U.S. basketball star Dennis Rodman arrived in North Korea on Tuesday, returning to the increasingly isolated nuclear-armed country where he has previously met leader Kim Jong Un.

U.S. officials appeared to brush aside any speculation of a connection between Rodman’s controversial visit and Warmbier’s release.

A senior administration official said the Trump administration did not authorize Rodman’s trip. “This is him freelancing,” the official told Reuters.

The State Department is continuing to discuss the situation of three other detained Americans with North Korea, Tillerson said.

Since taking office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump has faced growing tensions with North Korea, which has conducted a series of ballistic missile tests in defiance of U.S. and international sanctions.

Warmbier was detained in January 2016 and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March last year for trying to steal an item with a propaganda slogan, according to North Korean media.

“At the direction of the president, the Department of State has secured the release of Otto Warmbier from North Korea,” Tillerson said.

Richardson, a former Democratic congressman, U.N. Ambassador, U.S. energy secretary and ex-governor of New Mexico, welcomed Warmbier’s release but said “we are deeply concerned regarding his health.”

U.S. Senator Rob Portman of Ohio said: “Otto’s detainment and sentence was unnecessary and appalling, and North Korea should be universally condemned for its abhorrent behavior. Otto should have been released from the start.”

“Our son is coming home,” Fred Warmbier told the Washington Post. “At the moment, we’re just treating this like he’s been in an accident. We get to see our son Otto tonight.”

(Reporting by Eric Walsh; Additional reporting Steve Holland and Mark Hosenball; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Marguerita Choy and James Dalgleish)

Trump says he has new reasons to hope for Middle East peace

By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that he had come to Israel from a weekend visit to Saudi Arabia with new reasons to hope that peace and stability could be achieved in the Middle East.

On the second leg of his first overseas trip as president, Trump was to hold talks separately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The U.S. leader visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s walled Old City and was due to pray at Judaism’s Western Wall. He travels on Tuesday to Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank at the end of a stopover lasting 28 hours.

Netanyahu and his wife Sara, as well as President Reuven Rivlin and members of the Israeli cabinet, were at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion airport to greet Trump and first lady Melania in a red carpet ceremony after what is believed to have been the first direct flight from Riyadh to Israel.

“During my travels in recent days, I have found new reasons for hope,” Trump said in a brief speech on arrival.

“We have before us a rare opportunity to bring security and stability and peace to this region and its people, defeating terrorism and creating a future of harmony, prosperity and peace, but we can only get there working together. There is no other way,” he said.

Trump’s tour comes in the shadow of difficulties at home, where he is struggling to contain a scandal after firing James Comey as FBI director nearly two weeks ago. The trip ends on Saturday after visits to the Vatican, Brussels and Sicily.

ARAB WELCOME

During his two days in Riyadh, Trump received a warm welcome from Arab leaders, who focused on his desire to restrain Iran’s influence in the region, a commitment they found wanting in the Republican president’s Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama. He also announced $110 billion in U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Israel shares the antipathy that many Arab states have toward Iran, seeing the Islamic Republic as a threat to its very existence.

“What’s happened with Iran has brought many of the parts of the Middle East toward Israel,” Trump said in public remarks at a meeting in Jerusalem with Rivlin.

He also urged Iran to cease “its deadly funding, training and equipping of terrorists and militias”.

But Iran’s freshly re-elected pragmatist president, Hassan Rouhani, said regional stability could not be achieved without Iran’s help, and accused Washington of supporting terrorism with its backing for rebels in Syria.

He said the summit in Saudi Arabia “had no political value, and will bear no results”.

“Who can say the region will experience total stability without Iran? Who fought against the terrorists? It was Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Syria. But who funded the terrorists?”

Rouhani also said Iran would continue a ballistic missile program that has already triggered U.S. sanctions, saying it was for defensive purposes only.

U.S. President Donald Trump (C) stands next to Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz at the plaza in front of the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City May 22, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

“ULTIMATE DEAL”

Earlier, at the airport, Netanyahu said Israel hoped Trump’s visit would be a “milestone on the path towards reconciliation and peace”.

But he also repeated his right-wing government’s political and security demands of the Palestinians, including recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

Trump has vowed to do whatever is necessary to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians — something he has called “the ultimate deal” — but has given little indication of how he could revive negotiations that collapsed in 2014.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters en route to Tel Aviv that any three-way meeting between Trump, Netanyahu and Abbas was for “a later date”.

When Trump met Abbas this month in Washington, he stopped shortly of explicitly recommitting his administration to a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict, a long-standing foundation of U.S. policy.

Trump has also opted against an immediate move of the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a longtime demand of Israel.

A senior administration official told Reuters last week that Trump remained committed to the measure, which he pledged in his election campaign, but would not announce such a move during this trip.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) listens as U.S. President Donald Trump (L) speaks during a welcoming ceremony upon his arrival at Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod near Tel Aviv, Israel May 22, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

On Sunday, Israel authorized some economic concessions to the Palestinians that it said would improve civilian life in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority and were intended to respond to Trump’s request for “confidence-building steps”.

The United States welcomed the move but the Palestinians said they had heard such promises before.

Trump will have visited significant centers of Islam, Judaism and Christianity by the end of his trip, a point that his aides say bolsters his argument that the fight against Islamist militancy is a battle between “good and evil”.

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller)

Tillerson urges ASEAN to cut North Korea funding, minimize ties

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (C) poses with ASEAN foreign ministers before a working lunch at the State Department in Washington, U.S., May 4, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged Southeast Asian foreign ministers on Thursday to do more to help cut funding streams for North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and to minimize diplomatic relations with Pyongyang.

In his first ministerial meeting with all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Tillerson also called on nations with competing claims in the South China Sea to cease all island building and militarization while talks aimed at creating a maritime code of conduct were under way.

Patrick Murphy, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia, said Tillerson stressed Washington’s security and economic commitment to the region, amid doubts raised by President Donald Trump’s “America First” platform and withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact.

Tillerson called on ASEAN countries to fully implement U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang, which is working to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the United States, and to show a united front on the issue, Murphy said.

“We think that more can be done, not just in Southeast Asia,” he told reporters. “We are encouraging continued and further steps across all of ASEAN.”

Last week, Tillerson called on all countries to suspend or downgrade diplomatic ties with Pyongyang, saying that North Korea abuses diplomatic privileges to help fund its arms programs. Tillerson also warned that Washington would sanction foreign firms and people conducting business with North Korea if countries did not act themselves.

All ASEAN members have diplomatic relations with North Korea and five have embassies there.

Murphy said Washington was not encouraging ASEAN states to formally cut ties, but to examine the North Korean presence “where it clearly exceeds diplomatic needs.”

He said some countries were already doing this and also looking at the presence of North Korean workers, another significant revenue earner for Pyongyang.

KEEPING TENSION FROM INCREASING

Some officials of ASEAN members, speaking to reporters, acknowledged concerns about North Korea, but also cited concerns about trade relations with the United States.

Philippine acting Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo, whose country currently chairs ASEAN, said of the U.S. call to minimize relations with Pyongyahng, “We haven’t really discussed that among the ASEAN countries, so that’s probably something we will look at.

“Our immediate concern is to try and ensure the tension on the peninsula doesn’t increase. … The last thing we would like to see is to have a conflict break out due to some miscalculation,” Manalo said.

Singapore’s foreign minister, Vivian Balakrishnan, said sanctions would have to be fully implemented, but North Korea’s presence in his country is already minimal.Asked if that could be further reduced, he said: “I won’t say never, but at this point in time that’s not the issue – we will stick with the U.N. Security Council’s resolutions.”

Balakrishnan, whose country signed the TPP, stressed the importance of U.S.-ASEAN business ties – annual trade of $100 billion supporting half a million U.S. jobs and $274 billion of U.S. investment.

“Southeast Asia is replete with economic opportunities and it’s too big to miss out on,” he said.

His remark highlighted growing concern in Asia that Trump has ditched former President Barack Obama’s economic “pivot” to the region by abandoning the TPP, something analysts say has led to more countries being pulled into China’s orbit.

Murphy said Tillerson stressed that ASEAN remained a “very important … strategic partner,” which is shown by Trump’s commitment to attend regional summits in the Philippines and Vietnam in November.

Manalo called the meeting with Tillerson and Trump’s travel plans “encouraging” signs.

“ROOM AND SPACE”

Washington wants ASEAN countries to crack down on money laundering and smuggling involving North Korea and to look at restricting legal business too.

It has been working to persuade China, North Korea’s neighbor and only major ally, to increase pressure on Pyongyang. U.S. officials are also asking China to urge more China-friendly ASEAN members, such as Laos and Cambodia, to do the same.

U.S. efforts have included a flurry of calls by Trump to the leaders of the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore.

Diplomats say U.S. pressure has caused some irritation in ASEAN, including Malaysia, which has maintained relations with Pyongyang in spite of the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half brother at Kuala Lumpur International airport in February/

On the issue of the South China Sea, ASEAN has adopted a cautious approach recently, with a weekend summit avoiding references to China’s building and arming of artificial islands there.

This stance coincided with moves by China and ASEAN to draft a framework to negotiate a code of conduct. Murphy said Tillerson had stressed that this process needed “room and space” through avoiding fortifying existing claims.

The United States has conducted freedom of navigation operations to challenge South China Sea claims, angering China, but not yet under Trump. Murphy said such operations would continue, but declined to say when the next might occur.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Grant McCool and Leslie Adler)

U.S. needs to balance foreign alliances: Tillerson

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson delivers remarks to the employees at the State Department in Washington, U.S., May 3, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday outlined for his staff how an “America First” agenda translates into foreign policy, but did not address the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts, which worry many diplomats.

It was the first time Tillerson had addressed all employees since his first day on the job on Feb. 2, when he spoke to hundreds of State Department officials in the building’s lobby, and the most thorough explanation yet of the Trump administration’s approach to foreign policy.

Some allies and even some U.S. officials have interpreted Republican President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda, which puts Americans’ interests at home ahead of those of its partners overseas, as a threat to retreat from the world.

Tillerson said U.S. foreign policy priorities had gotten “a little bit out of balance” in the previous decades, with the United States too focused on promoting economic activity and trade with emerging economies.

“These are really important relationships to us, and they’re really important alliances, but we’ve got to bring them back into balance,” he said, speaking without notes and walking around the stage in a packed State Department auditorium.

He also signaled that the United States would de-emphasize human rights concerns in some of its interactions with other countries, saying that while U.S. values remain constant, its policies can adapt.

“If we condition too heavily that others must adopt this value that we’ve come to over a long history of our own, it really creates obstacles to our ability to advance our national security interests, our economic interests,” Tillerson said.

TILLERSON’S WORLD TOUR

Tillerson gave a tour of U.S. priorities around the world, including in East Asia, Russia, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere, omitting Europe.

With regard to North Korea’s nuclear program, Tillerson said the administration is willing to use so-called secondary sanctions to target foreign companies that continue to do business with Pyongyang in contravention of United Nations sanctions.

The pressure campaign on North Korea is “at about dial setting 5 or 6 right now,” Tillerson said.

On China, Tillerson said the United States has a “tremendous opportunity” to define its relationship with the superpower for the next several decades, and that he sensed great interest by the Chinese leadership to do that as well.

He and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will chair a dialogue with their Chinese counterparts in June, in addition to a dialogue focused on economics and trade and led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Tillerson said he had told Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit to Moscow last month that U.S.-Russia relations were at their lowest point since the Cold War.

“He did not disagree,” Tillerson said. “He shrugged his shoulders and nodded in agreement.”

But in remarks lasting nearly 40 minutes, Tillerson did not address the administration’s proposed 28 percent budget cut for U.S. diplomacy and foreign aid, which would reduce funding for the United Nations, climate change and cultural exchange programs. That proposal has made many American diplomats and aid workers anxious.

The Trump administration also has not named candidates for the vast majority of State Department positions requiring Senate confirmation, and many are being filled by career diplomats in “acting” positions. Tillerson began his remarks by thanking those officials, to applause from the crowd.

One veteran official who watched the speech criticized Tillerson’s use of the “America First” slogan. The phrase was used in the 1930s by isolationists who sought to keep the United States out of World War Two.

“The fact that they still use ‘America First’ shows they know nothing about history, and what’s worse is they don’t care.

“It’s offensive,” said the official, who requested anonymity.

Tillerson’s remarks followed an invitation to State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development employees this week to participate in an online survey to help identify “efficiency improvements,” in line with a March directive from Trump to “reorganize governmental functions and eliminate unnecessary agencies.” In his speech, the secretary urged employees to fill out the survey and give input on how to reform the agency.

Tillerson said the State Department, like many institutions, was built for the Cold War era.

He said he recognized that deep change to the State Department “is really stressful for a lot of people” and said the administration has “no preconceived notions on the outcome” of a review.

One State Department official faulted Tillerson for not talking in detail about the budget cuts, as well as for not taking questions from employees.

Previous secretaries of state, including Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton, held question-and-answer sessions with State Department employees within weeks of taking office.

“They wanted to make this look like he was talking to us, but it was more about the appearance than any substance,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Two other State Department officials, however, spoke highly of Tillerson’s remarks, saying it was early to expect him to take questions from the rank and file and saying he provided guidance both on foreign policy and on the challenge of reorganizing the department.

“I can understand folks wanting more details. I just don’t think we are in a place where he can provide more details,” said one of these officials about the expected State Department budget cuts. “My big takeaway was put on your big-girl britches, and when you look back you will feel like you were part of making this reform happen.”

(Additonal reporting by Arshad Mohammad, Jonathan Landay and John Walcott; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

North Korea test-fires ballistic missile in defiance of world pressure

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un watches a military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) made available on April 26, 2017. KCNA/Handout via REUTERS

By Jack Kim and Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile on Saturday shortly after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that failure to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs could lead to “catastrophic consequences”.

U.S. and South Korean officials said the test, from an area north of the North Korean capital, appeared to have failed, in what would be the North’s fourth straight unsuccessful missile test since March.

The test came as the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group arrived in waters near the Korean peninsula, where it began exercises with the South Korean navy on Saturday, about 12 hours after the failed launch, a South Korean navy official said.

Tillerson, in a U.N. Security Council meeting on North Korea on Friday, repeated the Trump administration’s position that all options were on the table if Pyongyang persisted with its nuclear and missile development.

“The threat of a nuclear attack on Seoul, or Tokyo, is real, and it’s only a matter of time before North Korea develops the capability to strike the U.S. mainland,” Tillerson said.

“Failing to act now on the most pressing security issue in the world may bring catastrophic consequences.”

U.S. President Donald Trump said the launch was an affront to China, the North’s sole main ally.

“North Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!,” Trump said in a post on Twitter after the launch.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the U.N. meeting it was not only up to China to solve the North Korean problem.

“The key to solving the nuclear issue on the peninsula does not lie in the hands of the Chinese side,” Wang said.

In a commentary on Saturday, China’s official Xinhua news agency said both North Korea and the United States needed to tread cautiously.

“If both sides fail to make such necessary concessions, then not only will the two countries, but the whole region and the whole world end up paying a heavy price for a possible confrontation.”

Trump, in an interview with Reuters on Thursday, praised Chinese leader Xi Jinping for “trying very hard” on North Korea but warned a “major, major conflict” was possible.

The North has been conducting missile and nuclear weapons related activities at an unprecedented rate and is believed to have made progress in developing intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks over fears the North may conduct a long-range missile test, or its sixth nuclear test, around the time of the April 15 anniversary of its state founder’s birth.

JAPAN PROTESTS

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe condemned the test as a grave threat to the international order.

“I urged Russia to play a constructive role in dealing with North Korea,” Abe told reporters in London. “Japan is watching how China will act in regard to North Korea.”

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the North Koreans had probably tested a medium-range missile known as a KN-17 and it appeared to have broken up within minutes of taking off.

The South Korean military said the missile reached an altitude of 71 km (44 miles) before disintegrating. It said the launch was a clear violation of U.N. resolutions and warned the North not to act rashly.

With North Korea acting in defiance of the pressure, the United States could conduct new naval drills and deploy more ships and aircraft in the region, a U.S. official told Reuters.

The dispatch of Carl Vinson to the waters off the Korean peninsula is a “reckless action of the war maniacs aimed at an extremely dangerous nuclear war,” the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, said in a commentary on Saturday.

Inter-continental ballistic rockets will fly into the United States “if the U.S. shows any slight sign of provocation,” the newspaper said.

MORE SANCTIONS MOOTED

Kim Dong-yub, an expert at Kyungnam University’s Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, said North Korea might have got the data it wanted with the missile’s short flight, then blown it up in a bid to limit the anger of China, which warned Pyongyang against further provocation.

North Korea rattled world powers in February when it successfully launched a new intermediate-range ballistic missile that it said could carry a nuclear weapon. It also successfully tested ballistic missiles on March 6.

It is not clear what has caused the series of failed missile tests since then.

The Trump administration could respond to the test by speeding up its plans for new U.S. sanctions, including possible measures against specific North Korean and Chinese entities, said the U.S. official, who declined to be identified.

“Something that’s ready to go could be taken from the larger package and expedited,” said the official.

The U.N. Security Council is likely to start discussing a statement to condemn the missile launch, said diplomats.

But condemnations and sanctions resolutions since 2006, when North Korea conducted its first nuclear test, have done little to impede its push for ballistic missiles and nuclear arms.

The South Korean politician expected to win a May 9 presidential election, Moon Jae-in, called the test an “exercise in futility”.

“We urge again the Kim Jong Un regime to immediately stop reckless provocative acts and choose the path to cooperate with the international community,” Park Kwang-on, a spokesman for Moon, said in a statement, referring to the North Korean leader.

Moon has advocated a more moderate policy on the North and been critical of the deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system in the South intended to counter North Korea’s missile threat, which China also strongly objects to.

(This story has been refiled to clarify timing of naval exercise in paragraph three.)

(Additional reporting by Soyoung Kim in SEOUL, Idrees Ali, David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick in WASHINGTON, Tim Kelly and Nobuhiro Kubo in TOKYO, John Ruwitch in SHANGHAI and Michelle Nichols and Lesley Wroughton at the UNITED NATIONS, William James and Alistair Smout in LONDON; Editing Lincoln Feast and Robert Birsel)

U.S. says failure to act on North Korea could be catastrophic

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks at a Security Council meeting on the situation in North Korea at the United Nations, in New York City, U.S., April 28, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

By Michelle Nichols and Lesley Wroughton

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned on Friday that failure to curb North Korea’s nuclear and missile abilities could lead to ‘catastrophic consequences,’ while China and Russia cautioned Washington against threatening military force to solve the problem.

While Washington has pressed Beijing to rein in its ally Pyongyang, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the U.N. Security Council that “the key to solving the nuclear issue on the peninsula does not lie in the hands of the Chinese side.”

Tillerson urged the 15-member body to act before North Korea does and called on states to sever diplomatic and financial ties with Pyongyang. He said that because China accounted for 90 percent of North Korean trade, its role was particularly important.

“Failing to act now on the most pressing security issue in the world may bring catastrophic consequences,” Tillerson said in his first remarks to the council as secretary of state.

The United States was not pushing for regime change and preferred a negotiated solution, but Pyongyang, for its own sake, should dismantle its nuclear and missile programs, he said.

“The threat of a nuclear attack on Seoul, or Tokyo, is real, and it’s only a matter of time before North Korea develops the capability to strike the U.S. mainland,” Tillerson said.

While Tillerson repeated the Trump administration’s position that all options are on the table if Pyongyang persists with its nuclear and missile development, Yi said military threats would not help.

Yi said dialogue and negotiations were the “only way out” and called on parties to stop arguing over who must take the first step. China wants talks first and action later, while the United States wants North Korea to curtail its nuclear program before such talks start.

“The use of force does not solve differences and will only lead to bigger disasters,” Wang told the council.

U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday that a “major, major conflict” with North Korea was possible over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

‘FRIGHTENING’ CONSEQUENCES

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov also said on Friday the use of force would be “completely unacceptable.”

“The combative rhetoric coupled with reckless muscle-flexing has led to a situation where the whole world seriously is now wondering whether there’s going to be a war or not,” he told the council. “One ill thought out or misinterpreted step could lead to the most frightening and lamentable consequences.”

Gatilov said North Korea felt threatened by regular joint U.S. and South Korean military exercises and the deployment of a U.S. aircraft carrier group to waters off the Korean peninsula.

China and Russia both also repeated their opposition to the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system in South Korea. Gatilov described it as a “destabilizing effort,” while Wang said it damaged trust among the parties on the North Korea issue.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told the council that to bring North Korea back to the table the international community “must send a strong message that provocation comes at a high price.”

“There is no doubt that dialogue is necessary … however under the current situation where North Korea continues to advance its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, meaningful dialogue is clearly not possible,” he said.

The Trump administration is focusing its North Korea strategy on tougher economic sanctions, possibly including an oil embargo, a global ban on its airline, intercepting cargo ships and punishing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang, U.S. officials told Reuters earlier this month.

Since 2006, North Korea has been subject to U.N. sanctions aimed at impeding the development of its nuclear and missile programs. The council has strengthened sanctions following each of North Korea’s five nuclear tests.

(Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Frances Kerry)

North Korea warns of ‘super-mighty preemptive strike’ as U.S. plans next move

A missile is fired from a naval vessel during the test-firing of a new type of anti-ship cruise missile to be equipped at Korean People's Army naval units. REUTERS/KCNA

By Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korean state media warned the United States of a “super-mighty preemptive strike” after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States was looking at ways to bring pressure to bear on North Korea over its nuclear programme.

U.S. President Donald Trump has taken a hard line with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has rebuffed admonitions from sole major ally China and proceeded with nuclear and missile programmes in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions.

The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, did not mince its words.

“In the case of our super-mighty preemptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only U.S. imperialists’ invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the U.S. mainland and reduce them to ashes,” it said.

Reclusive North Korea regularly threatens to destroy Japan, South Korea and the United States and has shown no let-up in its belligerence after a failed missile test on Sunday, a day after putting on a huge display of missiles at a parade in Pyongyang.

“We’re reviewing all the status of North Korea, both in terms of state sponsorship of terrorism as well as the other ways in which we can bring pressure on the regime in Pyongyang to re-engage with us, but re-engage with us on a different footing than past talks have been held,” Tillerson told reporters in Washington on Wednesday.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, on a tour of Asian allies, has said repeatedly an “era of strategic patience” with North Korea is over.

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said during a visit to London the military option must be part of the pressure brought to bear.

“Allowing this dictator to have that kind of power is not something that civilised nations can allow to happen,” he said in reference to Kim.

Ryan said he was encouraged by the results of efforts to work with China to reduce tension, but that it was unacceptable North Korea might be able to strike allies with nuclear weapons.

North and South Korea are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

‘MAX THUNDER’

South Korea’s acting president, Hwang Kyo-ahn, at a meeting with top officials on Thursday, repeatedly called for the military and security ministries to maintain vigilance.

The defence ministry said U.S. and South Korean air forces were conducting an annual training exercise, codenamed Max Thunder, until April 28. North Korea routinely labels such exercises preparations for invasion.

“We are conducting a practical and more intensive exercise than ever,” South Korean pilot Colonel Lee Bum-chul told reporters. “Through this exercise, I am sure we can deter war and remove our enemy’s intention to provoke us.”

South Korean presidential candidates clashed on Wednesday night in a debate over the planned deployment in South Korea of a U.S.-supplied Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system, which has angered China.

Frontrunner Moon Jae-in was criticized for leaving his options open before the May 9 election.

On Monday, Hwang and Pence reaffirmed their plans to go ahead with the THAAD, but the decision will be up to the next South Korean president. For its part, China says the system’s powerful radar is a threat to its security.

The North has said it has developed a missile that can strike the mainland United States, but officials and experts believe it is some time away from mastering the necessary technology, including miniaturising a nuclear warhead.

RUSSIA, U.S. AT ODDS

The United States and Russia clashed at the United Nations on Wednesday over a U.S.-drafted Security Council statement to condemn North Korea’s latest failed ballistic missile test.

Diplomats said China had agreed to the statement.

Such statements by the 15-member council have to be agreed by consensus.

Previous statements denouncing missile launches “welcomed efforts by council members, as well as other states, to facilitate a peaceful and comprehensive solution through dialogue”. The latest draft statement dropped “through dialogue” and Russia requested it be included again.

“When we requested to restore the agreed language that was of political importance and expressed commitment to continue to work on the draft … the U.S. delegation without providing any explanations cancelled the work on the draft,” the Russian U.N. mission said in a statement.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China believed in the Security Council maintaining unity.

“Speaking with one voice is extremely important to the Security Council appropriately responding to the relevant issue on the peninsula,” he told reporters.

There has been some confusion over the whereabouts of a U.S. aircraft carrier group after Trump said last week he had sent an “armada” as a warning to North Korea, even as the ships were still far from Korean waters.

The U.S. military’s Pacific Command explained that the USS Carl Vinson strike group first had to complete a shorter-than-planned period of training with Australia. It was now heading for the Western Pacific as ordered, it said.

China’s influential Global Times newspaper, which is published by the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official paper, wondered whether the misdirection was deliberate.

“The truth seems to be that the U.S. military and president jointly created fake news and it is without doubt a rare scandal in U.S. history, which will be bound to cripple Trump’s and U.S. dignity,” it said.

(This articled has been refiled with military clarification of pilot’s rank, paragraph 14)

(Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton in WASHINGTON, William James in LONDON, Michelle Nichols at the UNITED NATIONS, Idrees Ali in RIYADH, Ben Blanchard in BEIJING and Kim Do-gyun in GUNSAN, South Korea; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

Tillerson heads to Moscow carrying Western call for Russia to abandon Assad

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson disembarks from a plane upon his arrival at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

By Steve Scherer and Andrew Osborn

LUCCA, Italy/MOSCOW (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson carried a message from world powers to Moscow on Tuesday denouncing Russian support for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, as the Trump administration took on America’s traditional mantle as leader of a unified West.

Tillerson flew on the administration’s first cabinet mission to Russia after meeting foreign ministers from the Group of Seven advanced economies and Middle Eastern allies in Italy. They endorsed a joint call for Russia to abandon Assad.

The administration of President Donald Trump, which came to power in January calling for warmer ties with Russia, was thrust into confrontation with Moscow last week when a poison gas attack in northern Syria killed 87 people.

Western countries blame President Assad for the gas attack, and Trump responded by firing cruise missiles at a Syrian air base. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stood firmly by Moscow’s ally Assad, who denies blame.

“It is clear to us the reign of the Assad family is coming to an end,” Tillerson told reporters in Italy before departing for Moscow. “We hope that the Russian government concludes that they have aligned themselves with an unreliable partner in Bashar Al-Assad.”

He said Russia had failed in its role as sponsor of a 2013 deal under which Assad promised to give up his chemical arsenal.

“These agreements stipulated Russia as the guarantor of a Syria free of chemical weapons,” Tillerson said.

“It is unclear whether Russia failed to take this obligation seriously and whether Russia has been incompetent. But this distinction doesn’t much matter to the dead. We can’t let this happen again.”

Russia says the chemicals that killed civilians belonged to rebels, not to Assad’s government, and has accused the United States of an illegal act of aggression against Syria on a phoney pretext. Putin said on Tuesday he believed Washington planned to launch more missile strikes, and that rebels were planning to stage chemical weapons attacks to provoke them.

“We have information that a similar provocation is being prepared … in other parts of Syria including in the southern Damascus suburbs where they are planning to again plant some substance and accuse the Syrian authorities of using (chemical weapons),” Putin said, standing alongside Italian President Sergio Matarella who was in Moscow for talks.

Putin said Moscow would urgently ask the United Nations chemical weapons watchdog to investigate last week’s incident. Western countries have dismissed Russian suggestions that the poison gas belonged to rebels as beyond credibility.

“Russia’s allegations fit with a pattern of deflecting blame from the (Syrian) regime and attempting to undermine the credibility of its opponents,” a White House official said.

The United States, Britain and France have proposed a revised draft resolution to the 15-member U.N. Security Council that is similar to a text they circulated last week pushing Syria’s government to cooperate with investigators, diplomats said.

TURNING POINT

The secretary of state’s role as messenger for a united G7 position is a turning point for Trump, who in the past alarmed allies by voicing scepticism about the value of U.S. support for traditional friends, while calling for closer ties with Moscow.

Tillerson is a former boss of oil company Exxon Mobil which has gigantic projects in Russia. He was awarded Russia’s “Order of Friendship” by Putin in 2013.

He is due to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Wednesday. The Kremlin has said Tillerson has no meeting scheduled with Putin this trip, although some Russian media have reported such a meeting may nevertheless take place.

On Monday, Trump reached out to traditional NATO allies, discussing Syria by telephone with British Prime Minister Theresa May and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“I think we have to show a united position and that in these negotiations we should do all we can to get Russia out of Assad’s corner,” German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said.

Britain floated the idea of tightening sanctions on Russia, initially imposed in 2014 over its annexation of territory from Ukraine, although no such step was agreed at the G7 meeting. France said it was not discussed in depth.

Western countries have been calling for Assad to leave power since 2011, the start of a civil war that has killed at least 400,000 people and created the world’s worst refugee crisis.

Assad’s position on the battlefield became far stronger after Russia joined the war to support him in 2015. The United States and its allies are conducting air strikes in Syria against Islamic State, but until last week Washington had avoided targeting forces of Assad’s government directly.

ADDITIONAL STRIKES

The United States said its strike on the Syrian airbase near Homs on Friday was a one-off and not a strategic shift. But the White House has also said Trump could authorize more strikes if Syria uses chemical weapons again.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer suggested on Monday a lower bar for further U.S. action, saying Washington could also retaliate if Syria uses “barrel bombs” – oil drums packed with explosives dropped from aircraft.

“When you watch babies and children being gassed, and suffer under barrel bombs, you are instantaneously moved to action,” he said. “I think this president’s made it very clear that if those actions were to continue, further action will definitely be considered by the United States.”

Retaliating for barrel bombs would require a major shift in U.S. policy since rebels say the weapons are used almost daily.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, said Syrian warplanes dropped barrel bombs on rebel-held areas of Hama province on Tuesday.

Syria has always denied using barrel bombs, though their use has been widely recorded by U.N. investigators. A source in the Syrian military denied it used them on Tuesday.

The U.S. missile strike increased expectations that Trump would adopt a tougher stance with respect to Russia, and engage more actively in world affairs instead of following the more isolationist position associated with some of his advisers.

Until the chemical attack, Trump had said Washington would no longer act as the world’s guardian, especially if it was not in the interests of the United States.

Trump’s previous warm words for Russia were an issue at home, where intelligence agencies accuse Moscow of using computer hacking to help him win last year’s presidential election. The FBI is investigating whether Trump campaign officials colluded with Moscow, which the White House denies.

On Monday, Tillerson visited the site of a World War Two Nazi massacre in Italy and said Washington would never let such abuses go unchallenged.

“We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world,” Tillerson told reporters in Sant’Anna di Stazzema.

(writing by Peter Graff, editing by Peter Millership and Tom Heneghan)

U.S. officials say Russian inaction enabled Syria chemical attack

A civil defence member breathes through an oxygen mask, after what rescue workers described as a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib, Syria April 4, 2017.

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Trump administration officials on Sunday blamed Russian inaction for enabling a deadly poison gas attack against Syrian civilians last week as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson prepared to explain to Moscow a U.S. retaliatory missile strike.

Tillerson said Syria was able to execute the attack, which killed scores of people, because Moscow had failed to carry out a 2013 agreement to secure and destroy chemical weapons in Syria.

White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Syria’s “sponsors,” Russia and Iran, were enabling President Bashar al-Assad’s “campaign of mass murder against his own civilians.”

But Tillerson, who is expected to visit Moscow on Wednesday for talks with Russian officials, said on ABC’s ‘This Week’ program there was “no change” to the U.S. military posture toward Syria.

“I think the real failure here has been Russia’s failure to live up to its commitments under the chemical weapons agreements that were entered into in 2013,” Tillerson said.

“The failure related to the recent strike and the recent terrible chemical weapons attack in large measure is a failure on Russia’s part to achieve its commitment to the international community,” he added.

U.S. President Donald Trump ordered cruise missile strikes on a Syrian air base after he blamed Assad for the chemical attack, which killed at least 70 people, many of them children, in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun. The Syrian government has denied it was behind the attack.

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” McMaster said the United States would take further action in Syria if necessary.

“We’re prepared to do more. In fact, we were prepared to do more two days ago,” McMaster said. “The president will make whatever decision he thinks is in the best interests of the American people.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Hassan Rouhani said in a phone call that aggressive U.S. actions against Syria were not permissible and violated international law, the Kremlin said.

McMaster said Russian leaders were supporting “a murderous regime” and their actions would dictate the future of U.S.-Russian relations.

“Do they want it to be a relationship of competition and potential conflict,” McMaster said. “Or do they want it to be a relationship in which we can find areas of cooperation that are in our mutual interest?”

Tillerson stopped short of accusing Russia of direct involvement in planning or carrying out the attack, saying he had not seen “any hard evidence” to suggest Moscow was an accomplice to Assad.

But he said the United States expected Russia to take a tougher stance by rethinking its alliance with Assad because “every time one of these horrific attacks occurs, it draws Russia closer into some level of responsibility.”

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and David Morgan; Editing by James Dalgleish)