The United States flew two B-1 bombers over South Korea yesterday in a show of force against North Korea’s latest and most powerful nuclear test last week, while the Obama administration pushes to impose new sanctions on the defiant state.
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“The United States has an unshakeable commitment to defend allies in the region and will take necessary steps to do so, including operations like this one today”.
Earlier in August, Ellsworth deployed several B-1s and more than 300 airmen to Guam, replacing B-52s from Minot AFB, N.D. The B-1s started flying U.S. Pacific Command’s continuous bomber presence missions on Aug. 15.
On 13 September, the Foreign Ministers of China and South Korea spoke on the phone, with the former expressing Beijing’s opposition to the North’s latest act while at the same reiterating its disapproval of the planned THADD deployment.
Beijing’s official People’s Daily newspaper on Wednesday called the United States a troublemaker and said it has no right to lecture China about taking responsibility for reining in North Korea as tensions on the peninsula are a direct result of USA actions. It can carry 61 tons of weaponry, including 24 nuclear bombs, 24 joint direct attack munitions (JDAM), 84 conventional bombs, 24 air-to-surface missiles, and 8 cruise missiles.
He said the U.S. would work with China, North Korea’s major diplomatically, to close loopholes in existing resolutions, which were tightened with China’s backing in March.
Kim Hong-kyun said such a resolution would seek to “close the loopholes” in the existing sanctions as well as to place “pressure on North Korea from all directions so that it will no longer be able to operate normally in the worldwide community”.
He said that if Pyongyang is really ready to talk about denuclearization, it can be discussed through six-party talks, but the USA diplomat noted that the DPRK showed no interest in dialogue as it conducted unprecedented provocations.
Days before the nuclear test, North Korea launched what were believed to be three mid-range Rodong missiles into the Sea of Japan as China was hosting the Group of 20 summit in Hangzhou.
Guam is a US -controlled island territory in the western Pacific, some 1,550 miles (2,500 kilometers) east of the Philippines, and about 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) from the Korean Peninsula. Continued tests will allow the North to improve its technology, such as for creating smaller nuclear warheads, further threatening Northeast Asia.
However Hecker said North Korea’s uranium programme, where nuclear weapons have been designed, is its “new nuclear wildcard” as there was no way of Western experts knowing just how advanced their labs are.
Last Thursday, North Korea conducted its fifth nuclear test, the third since Kim Jong Un took power at the end of 2011 and the second this year.
Sung Kim, special representative for DPRK Policy of the U.S. Department of State, arrived in Seoul on Monday afternoon after holding talks with his Japanese counterpart in Tokyo. But Beijing prefers keeping a nuclear-armed North Korea afloat as a buffer against the South and the United States, Seoul’s military ally, to risking the collapse of the North’s government with too severe enforcement of sanctions, analysts say.
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But he also noted that the United States remains open to authentic, meaningful dialogue with Pyongyang on ending its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
