Large amounts of virus e-mails were sent out shortly after North Korea’s recent nuclear test purporting to be from Cheong Wa Dae and other major South Korean government agencies.
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North Korea has long wanted to stop military exercises between the United States and South Korea.
Ahead of Kerry’s trip, Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken is also scheduled to visit China next week for discussions also expected to focus on North Korea.
The World Economic Forum withdrew its invitation for North Korea’s foreign minister to attend its annual Davos meeting because of the nuclear test, a move Pyongyang said was “based on unjust political motivation” driven by the United States.
“North Korea’s fourth nuclear test challenges again the US extended nuclear deterrence to South Korea”, Murdock said in an email to Yonhap News Agency.
On Janury 6, North Korea confirmed in an official statement it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, stating that the test had been carried out with aims of “self-defense”, while stressing that the country will not use nuclear weapons provided its sovereignty is not violated.
The U.S. has maintained that its military exercises in South Korea are purely defensive while North Korea says they are preparations for invasion. Kim Jong-un’s father used these provocations to get concessions, but this time it looks as if the new Dear Leader is going out of his way to provoke tougher conditions on his country.
The State Department made the announcement Friday, the same day Wu Dawei, China’s special representative for Korean Peninsula Affairs, told his South Korea counterpart Hwang Joon-kook that Beijing would work with Seoul on a United Nations Security Council resolution that imposes new sanctions.
The U.S. has previously called the North’s linking the military drills with its nuclear tests an “an implicit threat” and demanded that Pyongyang first demonstrate its sincerity to nuclear disarmament.
The two Koreas remain in a technical state of war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, instead of a peace treaty.
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The Security Council last approved sanctions against North Korea three weeks after its third nuclear test on February 12, 2013. “It’s hard to take any of their overtures seriously, especially in the wake of their nuclear test”.
