U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry slammed North Korea as “the only country in the world defying the global movement towards responsibility”.
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North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho (C) speaks to reporters after attending the Regional Security Forum (ARF) meeting held on the sideline of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)’s annual ministerial meeting in Vientiane on July 26, 2016.
But several North Korean nuclear and missile tests this year have led South Korea to reconsider.
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.
“Together we are determined…to make absolutely certain that DPRK (North Korea) understands that there are real consequences for these actions”, Kerry said.
He urged the global community to fully enforce the sanctions imposed on North Korea “and we intend to do that”.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry Spokeswoman Park Soo-jin on Wednesday reiterated the position of both Seoul and Washington that Pyongyang must first halt its nuclear program before any talks to reduce tensions and end sanctions can occur.
Earlier in the day, Kerry had referred to Iran and encouraged North Korea to follow its example. An armistice that stopped the fighting has yet to be replaced with a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula split along the world’s most heavily fortified border and at a technical state of war. “(The) issue that came up in almost every meeting I had so far this week is the provocative and deeply concerning behaviour of the DPRK”, he told reporters.
Kim called North Korea a “responsible nuclear weapons state” at the May congress. He has sent party heavyweights to Cuba, Vietnam and Laos, launching a diplomatic offensive to undermine the global consensus against the North’s nuclear program.
The Han River estuary has been a particularly tense location this year amid ongoing efforts by South Korea and the United Nations Command to clamp down on illegal Chinese fishermen, some of whom have used North Korean waters as an escape route.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), scheduled to be in place by 2017, has left China distrustful of South Korea.
Beijing is Pyongyang’s main ally but its patience has worn thin.
The leaflets also carried a message celebrating the North’s “victory” against the U.N. Forces during the Korean War (1950-53).
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Hyun Lee and Juyeon Rhee, members of the U.S.-based Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea (SCDPK), were refused admission by immigration after being told they had been flagged by the South Korean intelligence services, Lee said.
