South Korea and the US yesterday agreed on “swift punitive measures” against North Korea in the event of further provocation, as a North Korean official vowed it would push ahead with nuclear and missile tests to counter US “hostile acts.”
As a standoff escalated over North Korea’s nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles, South Korea said the deployment of a US anti-missile defense system was moving ahead effectively a day after angry protests against the battery and fierce opposition from China.
South Korea on Wednesday moved parts of a US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile defense system to its deployment site, on what had been a golf course, about 250km south of the capital, Seoul, signalling a faster installation of the system.
Photo: AP
“The two sides pledged that in the event of additional strategic provocation by the North to swiftly take punitive measures, including a new UN Security Council resolution that are unbearable for the North,” the South Korean Presidential Office said after its national security adviser, Kim Kwan-jin, held a telephone call with US National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster.
The US and North Korea have stepped up warnings to each other over North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and missiles in defiance of UN resolutions.
The North Korean threat is perhaps the most serious security challenge confronting US President Donald Trump.
He has vowed to stop the North from being able to hit the US with a nuclear missile and US Vice President Mike Pence last week said that the “era of strategic patience” was over.
Though it has warned “all options are on the table,” Trump’s administration on Wednesday said it aimed to push North Korea into dismantling its weapons programs through tougher sanctions and diplomatic pressure, and it remained open to talks.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and US Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats described North Korea as “an urgent national security threat and top foreign policy priority.”
The US signal of a willingness to exhaust non-military avenues came as the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group approached Korean waters, where it is to join the USS Michigan nuclear submarine.
North Korea, which on Tuesday conducted its biggest-ever artillery exercise to mark the 85th anniversary of its military’s creation, says it needs to develop weapons to defend itself from US aggression.
A North Korean official speaking on CNN said the country would not be influenced by outside events.
“As long as America continues its hostile acts of aggression, we will never stop nuclear and missile tests,” said Sok Chol-won, director of North Korea’s Institute of Human Rights at the Academy of Social Sciences.
North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun said it was “entirely because of the US” that global denuclearization had not materialized.
“So US officials should know this clearly and feel responsible, not play with their beaks thoughtlessly,” the newspaper said.
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