"The days when North Korea could create a crisis and elicit concessions, those days are over." Obama said from the White House East Room, after the two leaders met privately in the Oval Office.

Obama's comments came in a news conference with South Korean President Park Geun-hye on her first foreign visit as the country's leader. It marked the 60th anniversary of the U.S.-South Korean alliance.

Obama said that Pyongyang has failed to drive a wedge between the U.S. and South Korea or to garner global respect with its threats. He says the joint U.S.-South Korea meeting at the White House was evidence that North Korea has "failed again."

Ahead of the meeting, U.S. officials said North Korea has taken a step back from its recent escalation of regional tensions by removing from its launch site a set of medium-range ballistic missiles that had been readied for possible test-firing.

Continue Reading...

In a highly conditional warning, the section of the Korean People's Army responsible for operations in North Korea's southwest said it will hit back if any shells fall in its territory during the drills, which began Monday and will end Friday. Should the allies respond to that, the statement said, Pyongyang's military would then strike five South Korean islands that stand along the aquatic frontline between the countries.

The area includes waters that are claimed by both countries, and is the most likely scene of any future clash between the rival Koreas. North Korea disputes a boundary unilaterally drawn close to its shores by the U.S.-led U.N. Command after the war, and has had three bloody naval clashes with the South since 1999.

Highly critical language is standard from North Korea during what the allies call routine military drills that they stage over the course of a year. Tuesday's statement was softer than the bellicose rhetoric Pyongyang unleashed with regularity during two months of larger-scale joint military drills by the allies that ended one week ago. That included threats of nuclear and missile strikes on Washington and Seoul.

Continue Reading...

In a report to Congress released Thursday, the US Defense Department said that North Korea's recent advances in missile technology, as showcased at the height of its standoff with South Korea, were "in line with North Korea's stated objective of being able to strike the US homeland."

"North Korea will move closer to this goal, as well as increase the threat it poses to US forces and allies in the region, if it continues testing and devoting scarce regime resources to these programs," the report said.

The Pentagon has no reason to expect that North Korea will halt its costly and controversial nuclear tests or rocket launches, the report said, since Kim Jong Un's regime appears to believe that building up a nuclear arsenal will protect it from outside attack and help undermine South Korea's alliance with the US.

Continue Reading...

"Genuine dialog is possible only at the phase where the DPRK has acquired nuclear deterrent enough to defuse the US threat of nuclear war unless the US rolls back its hostile policy," the North's foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the state news agency, KCNA.

The statement came after a series of escalating threats against both the US and its neighbor, South Korea.

President Barack Obama said in an interview Tuesday that it is likely that North Korea will display more "provocative behavior" but that it would not be rewarded.

Continue Reading...

But how does the threat of military action play for foreign investors in South Korea?

Today, President Park Geun-hye met with foreign investors from Google, Citibank and Siemens — to name a few corporations — in her administration's Blue House, reported the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper. She tried to assure them that her administration would create a stable investment environment despite North Korea's bluster.

Continue Reading...

Kicking off four days of talks in an East Asia beset by increasing North Korean threats, Kerry told reporters in Seoul that Pyongyang and its enigmatic young leader would only increase their isolation if they launched the missile that American officials believe has a range of some 2,500 miles — or enough to reach the U.S. territory of Guam.

"If Kim Jong Un decides to launch a missile, whether it's across the Sea of Japan or some other direction, he will be choosing willfully to ignore the entire international community," Kerry told reporters. "And it will be a provocation and unwanted act that will raise people's temperatures."

Kerry said the test would be a "huge mistake" for Kim.

"It will further isolate his country and further isolate his people who are desperate for food and not missile launches," he warned. "They are desperate for opportunity and not for a leader to flex his muscles."

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland also said Thursday it has entered coordinates for targets. But it didn't elaborate on what it meant. The statement follows a recent torrent of warlike rhetoric seen as an effort to raise fears and pressure outside governments into policy changes.

The comments would carry more weight if they came from a military-related agency.

Analysts believe North Korea is extremely unlikely to stage an attack. But outside officials have said Pyongyang appears to be preparing to test-fly a missile that could reach Guam.

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

Analysts see a direct attack on Seoul as extremely unlikely, and there are no overt signs that North Korea's 1.2 million-man army is readying for war, let alone a nuclear one. South Korea's military has reported missile movements on North Korea's east coast but nothing pointed toward South Korea.

Still, North Korea's earlier warning that it won't be able to guarantee the safety of foreign diplomats after April 10 has raised fears that it will conduct a missile or nuclear test on Wednesday, resulting in U.S. retaliation.

The United States and South Korea have raised their defense postures, and so has Japan, which deployed PAC-3 missile interceptors in key locations around Tokyo on Tuesday as a precaution against possible North Korean ballistic missile tests.

Continue Reading...

Earlier April 8th, South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae said to a parliamentary committee that there were signs of nuclear test preparation at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, according to Voice of America, although he wouldn't elaborate further.

"We found there had been no unusual movements that indicated it wanted to carry out a nuclear test," a Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said later that day via Radio Free Europe, backtracking from the earlier comments.

Continue Reading...

It’s gone like this. A state of war has been declared between North Korea and the United States by Kim Jong-un, the North’s 27-year-old hereditary dictator. North Korea has battle plans to attack Washington and other U.S. cities, including, of all places, Austin, Texas, with atomic weapons. The Kaesong Industrial Zone, the last demonstration of North and South Korean cooperation just above the DMZ, has been temporarily shut down after the North refused entry to South Koreans who work there. Pyongyang has threatened to restart its Yongbyon nuclear power plant, mothballed since 2007 under a nuclear proliferation agreement with Washington and other regional powers, and begin producing bomb-ready plutonium again. And on Thursday, North Korea was allegedly moving missiles to its east coast facing Japan.

Continue Reading...

Over just a few days, he has unilaterally nullified the 1953 armistice with South Korea; vowed to restart his uranium enriching and plutonium programs; and issued "final approval" for "merciless" nuclear strikes against the United States.

He taunted South Korea's new leader, and shut down the Kaesong industrial estate, which served as unusual example of cooperation between the two Koreas. Most recently, he transported a missile to the east coast — either in an attempt to lob a warhead in America's general direction (he lacks the capability to actually hit the continent), or more probably, to test it, perhaps on the April 15 birthday of deceased founding father Kim Il Sung. "Is there a more bizarre and frightening figure in the world today than North Korea's young, impetuous and untested leader?" writes GlobalPost senior foreign affairs columnist Nicholas Burns.

Continue Reading...

But a missile attack isn't as likely as you'd think, despite the war rhetoric.

Analysts here in Seoul seem to agree that, if the press reports are true, the pariah state is probably prepping a test of the medium-range BM-25 Musudan missile. The device could, in theory, reach US bases in Japan and Guam.

Continue Reading...

The report came hours after North Korea's military warned that it has been authorized to attack the U.S. using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons. It was the North's latest war cry against America in recent weeks. The reference to smaller weapons could be a claim that Pyongyang has improved its nuclear technology. Or a bluff.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said he did not know the reasons behind the North's missile movement, and that it "could be for testing or drills."

He dismissed reports in Japanese media that the missile could be a KN-08, which is believed to be a long-range missile that if operable could hit the United States.

Kim told lawmakers at a parliamentary committee meeting that the missile has "considerable range" but not enough to hit the U.S. mainland.

The range he described could refer to a mobile North Korean missile known as the Musudan, which has a range of 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles). That would make Japan and South Korea potential targets — along with U.S. bases in both countries — but there are doubts about the missile's accuracy.

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

The move came only a day after the North announced it would restart the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, and step up production of nuclear weapons materials, an announcement that was fast met with international condemnation.

The joint factory zone earns North Korea around $2 billion a year, writes Reuters, which adde that the area houses 123 companies and around 50,000 North Korean workers, as well as a few hundred South Korean workers.

Over 800 South Korean workers had spent the night in the park, added Reuters, as the South demanded that entry to the park be restored.

Continue Reading...

The KCNA news agency announced the plan on April 2nd, saying that North Korea would reopen shuttered facilities, including the 5-megawatt Yongbyon reactor, which was closed in 2007.

Yongbyon served as a source of plutonium used for weapons, noted the BBC.

Authorities added the nuclear power would be used for both electric and military uses, as Kim Jong Un stressed that increasing North Korea's nuclear capacities would also increase its economic development.

The move comes after North Korea carried out its third nuclear test in February, which was quickly met with international condemnation and UN sanctions.

Continue Reading...

The announcement follows last month's hacking attack that brought down the servers of two major banks and three broadcasters in Seoul. The identity of those behind the attacks in March is still under investigation, though there has been some speculative finger pointing at North Korea.

"We will cooperate with the US to prepare measures in cyber policy, technology and information," a senior ministry official said, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap.

Continue Reading...