Tag Archives: South Korea

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

Kim Jon Un of North Korea

By Ju-min Park and Jack Kim

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NEW SANCTIONS?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BOMBER FLIGHT DELAYED

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

North Korea conducts fifth and largest nuclear test, drawing broad condemnation

South Korean emergency meeting

* Test seen as North’s most powerful yet

* Japan protests, sends jets to monitor for radiation

* China begins emergency radiation testing

* South accuses North of “maniacal recklessness”

* UN Security Council to hold closed-door meeting Friday –
dips

(Adds UN, CTBTO estimate, further condemnations)

By Ju-min Park and Jack Kim

SEOUL, Sept 9 (Reuters) – North Korea conducted its fifth
and biggest nuclear test on Friday and said it had mastered the
ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile, ratcheting up
a threat that its rivals and the United Nations have been
powerless to contain.

The blast, on the 68th anniversary of North Korea’s
founding, was more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima,
according to some estimates, and drew condemnation from the
United States as well as China, Pyongyang’s main ally.

Diplomats said the United Nations Security Council would
discuss the test at a closed-door meeting on Friday, at the
request of the United States, Japan and South Korea.

Under 32-year-old dictator Kim Jong Un, North Korea has
accelerated the development of its nuclear and missile
programmes, despite U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March
and have further isolated the impoverished country.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye, in Laos after a summit
of Asian leaders, said Kim was showing “maniacal recklessness”
in completely ignoring the world’s call to abandon his pursuit
of nuclear weapons.

U.S. President Barack Obama, aboard Air Force One on his way
home from Laos, said the test would be met with “serious
consequences”, and held talks with Park and with Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe, the White House said.

China said it was resolutely opposed to the test and urged
Pyongyang to stop taking any actions that would worsen the
situation. It said it would lodge a protest with the North
Korean embassy in Beijing.

There were further robust condemnations from Russia, the
European Union, NATO, Germany and Britain.

North Korea, which labels the South and the United States as
its main enemies, said its “scientists and technicians carried
out a nuclear explosion test for the judgment of the power of a
nuclear warhead,” according to its official KCNA news agency.

It said the test proved North Korea was capable of mounting
a nuclear warhead on a medium-range ballistic missile, which it
last tested on Monday when Obama and other world leaders were
gathered in China for a G20 summit.

Pyongyang’s claims of being able to miniaturise a nuclear
warhead have never been independently verified.

Its continued testing in defiance of sanctions presents a
challenge to Obama in the final months of his presidency and
could become a factor in the U.S. presidential election in
November, and a headache to be inherited by whoever wins.

“Sanctions have already been imposed on almost everything
possible, so the policy is at an impasse,” said Tadashi Kimiya,
a University of Tokyo professor specialising in Korean issues.

“In reality, the means by which the United States, South
Korea and Japan can put pressure on North Korea have reached
their limits,” he said.

UNPRECEDENTED RATE

North Korea has been testing different types of missiles at
an unprecedented rate this year, and the capability to mount a
nuclear warhead on a missile is especially worrisome for its
neighbours South Korea and Japan.

“The standardisation of the nuclear warhead will enable the
DPRK to produce at will and as many as it wants a variety of
smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher
strike power,” KCNA said, referring to the country’s formal
name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

It was not clear whether Pyongyang had notified Beijing or
Moscow of its planned nuclear test. Senior officials from
Pyongyang were in both capitals this week.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she
had no information to provide when asked if China had advance
warning of the test, and would not be drawn on whether China
would support tougher sanctions against its neighbour.

Although Beijing has criticised North Korea’s nuclear and
missile tests, it has repeatedly expressed anger since the
United States and South Korea decided in July to deploy the
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system
in the South.

China calls THAAD a threat to its own security and will do
nothing to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table on
its nuclear programme.

Preliminary data collected by the Vienna-based Comprehensive
Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which monitors
nuclear tests around the world, indicates the magnitude – around
5 – of the seismic event detected in North Korea on Friday was
greater than a previous one in January.

Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute
of International Studies said the highest estimates of seismic
magnitude suggested this was North Korea’s most powerful nuclear
test so far.

He said the seismic magnitude and surface level indicated a
blast with a 20- to 30-kilotonne yield. Such a yield would make
this test larger than the nuclear bomb dropped by the United
States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in World War Two.

“That’s the largest DPRK test to date, 20-30kt, at least.
Not a happy day,” Lewis told Reuters.

South Korea’s military put the force of the blast at 10
kilotonnes, which would still be the North’s most powerful
nuclear blast to date.

“The important thing is, that five tests in, they now have a
lot of nuclear test experience. They aren’t a backwards state
any more,” Lewis said.

(Reporting by Jack Kim, Ju-min Park, James Pearson, Se Young
Lee, Nataly Pak, and Yun Hwan Chae in SEOUL; Additional
reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING, Kaori Kaneko and Linda
Sieg in TOKYO, Kirsti Knolle in VIENNA and Eric Beech and
Michelle Nichols in WASHINGTON; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing
by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Ian Geoghegan)

North Korea lays new landmines near border truce village: report

truce village between North and South Korea

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea has laid landmines in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas, the South’s Yonhap news agency reported on Tuesday, as tension rose on the divided peninsula after the start of annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises.

North Korea, which conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and a string of rocket tests since then, regards the joint exercises as akin to war and has threatened to launch a military strike in retaliation.

North Korea had laid the mines near the DMZ “truce village” of Panmunjom, which is controlled by both of the Koreas and the U.S. military.

“North Korean’s military was seen laying several landmines last week on the North’s side of the Bridge of No Return,” Yonhap quoted an unidentified South Korean government source as saying.

The bridge crosses over a river along the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) border, near the scene of a 1976 attack by ax-wielding North Korean soldiers in which two U.S. soldiers were killed.

Yonhap said the mines were laid on the North’s side of the MDL border.

The DMZ is littered with mines planted over the years but neither side is meant to lay new ones. Last year, two South Korean soldiers were wounded by what the South said were mines laid by the North. The North expressed regret for the incident, without directly admitting to planting them.

South Korea’s defense ministry declined to comment on the Yonhap report of new mines saying the area was under the control of the U.N. Command.

The U.N. Command, headed by the U.S. military, which jointly supervises security in Panmunjom with the North, expressed concern about activities by the North’s military but did not confirm the report about mines.

“The presence of any device or munition on or near the bridge seriously jeopardizes the safety” of people near the border, the U.N. Command said in a statement.

It declined to speculate on the reason for recent unspecified activity by the North’s military.

Yonhap cited the government source as saying the mines may have been laid to prevent North Korean soldiers from defecting to the South.

On Monday, the North’s military said it was prepared to launch a retaliatory strike against the South and the United States in response to the annual drills called Ulchi Freedom Guardian, in which about 25,000 U.S. troops are participating.

Tension has been inflamed in recent days by the defection of a senior North Korean diplomat to the South in an embarrassing blow to the North.

(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Robert Birsel)

U.S., South Korea begin joint drills amid tension after defection

U.S. army soldiers take part in a military exercise near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas in Paju, South Korea

By Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) – The United States and South Korea kicked off annual military exercises on Monday, prompting warnings of retaliation from the North, as already-heightened tension on the peninsula has been inflamed by the defection of a Pyongyang diplomat.

North Korea has become further isolated after a January nuclear test, its fourth, and the launch of a long-range rocket in February brought tightened U.N. Security Council sanctions that Pyongyang defied with several ballistic missile launches.

About 25,000 U.S. troops are joining in the Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise, which runs until Sept 2. The U.S.-led U.N. Command Military Armistice Commission said it notified the North Korean army the exercises were “non-provocative” in nature.

The North calls the exercises preparations for invasion, and early on Monday threatened a pre-emptive nuclear strike. North Korea frequently makes such threats.

“From this moment, the first-strike combined units of the Korean People’s Army keep themselves fully ready to mount a preemptive retaliatory strike at all enemy attack groups involved in Ulji Freedom Guardian,” a KPA spokesman said in a statement carried by the North’s state-run KCNA news agency.

“The nuclear warmongers should bear in mind that if they show the slightest sign of aggression, it would turn the stronghold of provocation into a heap of ashes through a Korean-style preemptive nuclear strike.”

Last week, South Korea announced that Thae Yong Ho, the North’s deputy ambassador in London, had defected and arrived in the South with his family, in an embarrassing blow to the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

High-level defections pointed to cracks in the Kim regime, South Korean President Park Geun-hye said on Monday.

“Recently even North Korea’s elite group is collapsing, followed by key figures defecting to foreign countries, showing a sign of serious cracks, with chances of shaking the regime further,” she told a National Security Council meeting.

Thae’s defection followed the flight to Seoul this year of 12 waitresses from a North Korean restaurant in China.

On Monday, North Korea’s Red Cross sent a letter to its South Korean counterpart asking for the women to be sent back, saying they had been kidnapped by the South, according to KCNA. South Korea denies they were kidnapped.

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

(Editing by Tony Munroe and Clarence Fernandez)

U.S. lobbies China again on missile defence system

Top Army People from US and China saluting

BEIJING (Reuters) – A decision by the United States and South Korea to deploy an advanced anti-missile defence system is aimed at defending against North Korea’s missile threat and does not threaten China, a senior U.S. officer said in Beijing on Tuesday.

The United States has repeatedly tried to rebuff anger from China about Seoul’s move to host a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) unit with the U.S. military.

Mark A. Milley, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, told his People’s Liberation Army counterpart Li Zuocheng that THAAD was a defensive measure, the U.S. Army said in a statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

THAAD “is a defensive measure to protect South Koreans and Americans from the North Korean ballistic missile threat and is not a threat in any way to China”, the statement paraphrased Milley as saying.

South Korea has said, too, that the move is purely to counter growing missile threats from the North and was not intended to target China, but Beijing has protested it would destabilise the regional security balance.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and followed up with a satellite launch and a string of test launches of missiles in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.

China and the United States have been at odds over the disputed South China Sea as well.

Beijing has been upset with U.S. freedom of navigation patrols in the waters there, and the United States has expressed concern about Chinese aircraft and ships operating in a dangerous manner close to U.S. forces.

Milley said the United States wants to maintain open channels of communications with China’s military to “reduce the risk of crisis or miscalculation and candidly address differences”, the statement said.

Milley “reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to adhere to international rules and standards and encouraged the Chinese to do the same as a way to reduce regional tensions”.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of trade moves annually. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have rival claims.

China’s Defence Ministry quoted Li as saying that THAAD, the South China Sea and Taiwan were all issues Beijing hoped Washington would pay attention to and “handle appropriately”.

China “hopes both militaries can increase cooperation, appropriately handle disputes and manage and control risks”, the statement paraphrased Li as saying.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie and Paul Tait)

South Koreans shave heads to protest U.S. missile defense system

Seongju residents get their heads shaved during a protest against the government's decision to place a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile

By Minwoo Park

SEONGJU, South Korea (Reuters) – About 900 South Koreans shaved their heads on Monday to protest against a government decision to place a missile defense system designed to counter North Korean missile threats, in the southeastern county of Seongju.

Tension has run high since North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and followed up with a satellite launch and a string of test launches of missiles.

South Korea announced in July that a U.S. THAAD anti-missile defense unit would be deployed in Seonjgu, but residents have protested, citing safety fears over the system’s sophisticated radar and its potential to be a wartime target.

The plan has also angered China and prompted a North Korean warning of retaliation.

Seongju residents, many of them farmers cultivating a melon variety that has brought the county domestic fame, sat in somber silence as they had their heads shaved while a protest leader led a crowd in chants of “No THAAD!”

“THAAD should not be deployed at all, not just in Seongju, but anywhere in South Korea,” said Yoo Ji-won, a 63-year-old melon farmer. “We residents gathered here and shaved heads to demonstrate against its deployment.”

As many as 908 people joined in the head-shaving part of the protest, organizers said.

“This is the most powerful way of displaying protest,” protest leader Kim An-soo said. “We cannot protest any bigger”.

The South Korean defense ministry has vowed to minimize any impact from THAAD on residents and the environment.

“THAAD is a self-defensive measure we’ve decided to deploy to protect the lives of our people from North Korea’s reckless provocations,” South Korean president Park Geun-hye said in a speech on Monday.

(Additional reporting by Ju-min Park; Writing by James Pearson; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Japan urges China not to escalate East China Sea tension

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga arrives at Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's official residence in Tokyo

By Kaori Kaneko

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan said on Monday it would respond firmly after Chinese government vessels intruded into what Japan considers its territorial waters near disputed islands in the East China Sea 14 times at the weekend.

Ties between China and Japan, the world’s second and third largest economies, have for years been plagued by a dispute over the islands that Japan controls, and the waters around them.

The flurry of Chinese incursions into the waters follows a period of sustained pressure on China about its activities in the South China Sea, and a Chinese criticism of what it saw as Japanese interference in that dispute.

Chinese activity near the disputed East China Sea islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, has heated up since Friday, Japanese officials said, prompting repeated Japanese protests, including three on Sunday alone.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Japan would urge China not to escalate the East China Sea dispute, while also responding firmly and calmly.

Agencies including the coastguard would act closely together to deal with the situation, Suga said.

A Japanese government source, who asked not to be identified, said Japan’s coastguard had stepped up its patrols in the region at the weekend but declined to give further details.

About 230 Chinese fishing vessels were in the area on Saturday, Japan’s foreign ministry said.

China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement on Saturday that China had indisputable sovereignty over the islands and nearby waters.

In the South China Sea, Japan has no claims and China recently rejected warned Japan not to interfere.

The United States, its Southeast Asian allies and Japan have questioned Chinese land reclamation on disputed islands in the South China Sea, especially after an international court last month rejected China’s historic claims to most of that sea.

China has refused to recognize the court ruling. Japan called on China to adhere to it, saying it was binding. China warned Japan not to interfere.

The spike in tension over the East China Sea also follows a Chinese accusation that Japan’s new defense minister, Tomomi Inada, had recklessly misrepresented history after she declined to say after her appointment last week if Japanese troops had massacred civilians in China during World War Two.

The legacy of Japan’s wartime occupation of parts of China is another thorn in relations between the neighbors.

China, and other counties in Asia, in particular South Korea, feel that Japan has never properly atoned for its aggression before and during World War Two.

Relations between South Korea and China have also been strained in recent days by a decision by South Korea and the United States to deploy an advanced anti-missile defense system, to guard against North Korean attacks, that China fears could be used against its military.

South Korea’s presidential office on Sunday rebuked China over its criticism of South Korea’s decision to deploy the anti-missile defense, urging China instead to play a stronger role against North Korea’s provocations.

South Korea and the United States began discussions to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) unit in the South after the North’s fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in defiance of U.N. sanctions.

(Reporting by Kaori Kaneko, Nobuhiro Kubo, Tim Kelly and Kiyoshi Takenaka; writing by Linda Sieg; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

Latest North Korea missile launch lands near Japan waters, alarms Tokyo

FILE PHOTO - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends the 3rd Meeting of Activists in Fisheries under the Korean People's Army

By Ju-min Park and James Pearson

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea launched a ballistic missile on Wednesday that landed in or near Japanese-controlled waters for the first time, the latest in a series of launches by the isolated country in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The main body of the missile landed in Japan’s economic exclusion zone, a Japanese defence official said, escalating regional tensions that were already high after a series of missile launches this year and the decision by the United States to place a sophisticated anti-missile system in South Korea.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe described the launch as a “grave threat” to Japan and said Tokyo “strongly protested”. Japan also said its self-defence force would remain on alert in case of further launches.

A U.S. State Department spokesman condemned the launch, and said it would “only increase the international community’s resolve to counter” North Korea’s actions.

The U.S. Strategic Command said it had detected two missiles, one of which it said exploded immediately after launch.

The missile that landed in the Sea of Japan was launched at about 7:50 a.m. Seoul time (2250 GMT Tuesday) from a region in South Hwanghae province to the southwest of North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang, South Korea’s Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

The launch showed North Korea’s ambition to “directly and broadly attack neighbouring countries and target several places in the Republic of Korea such as ports and airfields”, the South Korean office said, referring to South Korea by its official title.

The missile appeared to be a Rodong-type medium-range missile that flew about 1,000 km (620 miles), it said.

TENSIONS HIGH

The United States will begin large-scale annual drills with its ally South Korea later this month that it bills as defensive in nature and not provocative. North Korea typically protests against the drills, which it says are a rehearsal for invasion.

“The North Koreans seem to have been timing their recent short-range and medium-range missile tests to the weeks ahead of U.S.-South Korean joint exercises,” said Joshua Pollack, editor of the U.S.-based Nonproliferation Review.

“If the allies can exercise their armed forces, so can the North,” he said.

On July 19, North Korea fired three ballistic missiles that flew between 500 km and 600 km (300-360 miles) into the sea off its east coast.

The North later said the launches were part of an exercise simulating preemptive strikes against South Korean ports and airfields used by the U.S. military.

The latest launches follow an agreement last month between South Korea and the United States to deploy an advanced Terminal High Altitude Area Defence anti-missile system in the South.

North Korea had threatened a “physical response” against the deployment decision.

The North came under the latest round of U.N. Security Council sanctions in March after its fourth nuclear test in January and the launch of a long-range rocket the following month.

Tensions have been high on the Korean peninsula since the January nuclear test. The two Koreas remain technically at war under a truce that ended fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War.

(Additional reporting by Jack Kim in Seoul and Nobuhiro Kubo in Tokyo; Editing by Tony Munroe and Paul Tait)

North Korean seeks refuge in South Korean consulate

A security officer blocks the entrance to the South Korean consulate inside an office building in Hong Kong

By Donny Kwok and Sharon Shi

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Security was tightened at the South Korean consulate in Hong Kong on Thursday after media reports that a North Korean, possibly a student, had sought refuge there.

The North Korean is understood to be a member of a delegation that attended an ­academic competition at a Hong Kong university two weeks ago, the South China Morning Post said, citing government sources in the Chinese-ruled city.

A student who assisted at a math olympiad held at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) told Reuters the organizing committee of the competition asked for help on July 16 to track down an 18-year-old North Korean who had gone missing after the contest.

The student declined to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the issue. The organizing committee declined comment. The university could not be reached for comment.

North and South Korea remain technically at war, and the reports of a possible defection are bound to exacerbate tensions.

Uniformed and plainclothes police were patrolling around the office building near the heart of Hong Kong’s financial center where the South Korean consulate is located. Scores of reporters thronged the building.

Local government and consulate officials declined comment.

“We are aware of the report,” a spokeswoman from the Hong Kong police told Reuters, declining to comment further.

The 57th International Mathematical Olympiad was held at the HKUST on July 11-12. An all-male team of six took part from North Korea, according to the contest website. The team finished in 6th place.

South Korea’s foreign ministry declined comment on the media reports in Hong Kong. A ministry official said the South Korean government’s position was not to make any comments related to North Korean defectors, keeping in mind their safety and diplomatic relations with relevant countries.

China’s Foreign Ministry in Beijing also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tensions between North and South Korea have been particularly high since the North’s fourth nuclear test in January. After an announcement by the South in April that 13 workers at a restaurant in China run by the North had sought asylum, Pyongyang said they were abducted by agents from the South.

Hong Kong is ruled by China under a “one country, two systems” formula that accords the former British colony a degree of autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed in mainland China.

In the early 2000s, there was a rash of cases of North Koreans seeking asylum at foreign missions in China, mostly in Beijing, where in some cases they scaled embassy walls and forced their way in.

North Korean defectors mostly come from the poorest parts of the destitute state and usually flee over the traditionally quite porous border with China.

They then seek passage to the South via a third country, or previously via embassies and consulates in China, because Beijing sees them as economic refugees and forcibly repatriates them to North Korea.

(Additional reporting by Lindsy Long in Hong Kong, Ben Blanchard in Beijing, Ju-min Park, Jack Kim and James Pearson in Seoul; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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

North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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