Kerry, who is in the Laotian capital to attend an Asia-Pacific security conference that includes North Korea, told reporters Tuesday that North Korea is the only country that is moving in the opposite direction when the rest of the world is moving toward a nuclear-free world. He urged the country to follow the lead of Iran, which hammered out a deal to end its nuclear program in return for the lifting of sanctions.
Advertisement
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 worldwide obligations – a reference to its past commitments to abandon its nuclear-weapons programme.
Analysts say this year’s tests have shown the North making progress towards its goal of developing a credible strike threat against the U.S. mainland, adding urgency to Washington’s warnings.
China has strongly opposed THAAD’s deployment in South Korea, saying the system, especially the powerful “X-band” radar, could be used against it, despite repeated assurances from the US and the South that the battery is purely defensive and would be used only to cope with North Korean threats.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking at the end of the ASEAN forum, said North Korea’s “provocative and deeply concerning behavior” goes against the global trend of “trying to move in a different direction on nuclear weapons”.
The minister, Ri Yong Ho, said, however, that the United States had destroyed the possibility of a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.
A South Korean news report said Ri also alluded to a possible new nuclear test by Pyongyang sometime this year.
Ri strikes a slightly conciliatory tone in later comments to reporters, published by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, saying: “As a responsible nuclear state, we will not carelessly use our nuclear weapons unless we come to face an actual threat, [or] a threat of invasion from another nuclear state”.
Some analysts say North Korea has developed a handful of crude nuclear devices and is working toward building a warhead small enough to mount on a long-range missile capable of reaching the continental U.S. However, South Korean defense officials say the North has neither such a miniaturized warhead nor a functioning intercontinental ballistic missile.
A Cold War-style standoff flared after the North’s fourth nuclear test in January.
North Korea has continued to violate United Nations sanctions with further missile tests in recent weeks.
“If North Korea cares about its people, it should take the path of nuclear abandonment at an early date”, Cho said.
North Korea has responded to the latest sanctions with defiance, conducting a series of rocket and missile tests in spite of repeated global condemnation.
Advertisement
Ri also questioned the legitimacy of the United Nations sanctions, saying there is no article in the United Nations charter that says nuclear or missile tests are threats to worldwide peace.
