A U.S. Air Force B-1B bomber flies over Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, September 13, 2016.
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Washington said the demonstration was “just one example of the full range of military capabilities” that the U.S. possessed to counter potential threats from North Korea in the face of the latter’s nuclear and missile tests.
Coal and iron ore are North Korea’s biggest exports to China, which remains the country’s last remaining major trade partner and whose vigorous enforcement is crucial to the success of any sanctions. The United States has an unshakable commitment to defend allies in the region and will take necessary steps to do so, including operations like this one today.
Washington called the demonstration “just one example of the full range of military capabilities”.
On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke with South Korea’s Yun by phone, expressing Beijing’s opposition to the North’s latest nuclear test but also reiterating opposition to the planned deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THADD) anti-missile system in the South, China’s foreign ministry said. The United States had prepared for things to escalate in August, sending the B-1 fighter jets to Guam.
Washington and Seoul said yesterday that they would also try to enforce new bilateral sanctions against Pyongyang.
However, China and Russian Federation, which strongly oppose a recent decision by the United States and South Korea to deploy an advanced anti-missile system in the South to counter the North’s missile threat, have shown reluctance to back further sanctions.
Hecker, a former director of the US Los Alamos National Laboratory, where nuclear weapons have been designed, has called North Korea’s uranium-enrichment programme “their new nuclear wild card”.
The paper called the U.S. a “troublemaker” and said it has no right to advise China to take responsibility in restraining the North from carrying out missile launches. “And so it’s important that it (China) uses its location, its history and its influence to further the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula”.
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. It is better for the doer to undo what he has done.
North Korea has refused the US demand that it accept denuclearization as a condition for holding dialogue.
In a commentary, the ruling Communist Party’s official paper said the United States was pretending it had nothing to do with the North Korea issue and was putting the blame on others.
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“Left unchecked, Pyongyang will likely develop the capability to reach the continental United States with a nuclear tipped missile in a decade or so”, Siegfried wrote on the North Korea-focused website 38 North.
