North Korea fires 'projectiles' after offering talks with US
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Tuesday fired projectiles toward the sea, South Korea's military said, hours after Pyongyang said it is willing to hold working-level talks with the United States in late September.
Negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington have been gridlocked since a second summit between the North's leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump in February ended without a deal.
North Korea twice launched "unidentified projectiles" Tuesday morning in an easterly direction from South Pyongan province, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
No further details were immediately available but these were the latest to be fired since July. Previous launches have been identified as short-range missiles.
"We are aware of reports of projectiles launched from North Korea," a senior US official said. "We are continuing to monitor the situation and consulting closely with our allies in the region."
Trump and Kim had agreed to restart working-level dialogue during an impromptu meeting at the Demilitarised Zone dividing the nuclear-armed North and South Korea in June, but those talks have yet to begin.
"We are willing to sit face-to-face with the US around late September at a time and place that we can agree on," Choe Son Hui, the North's vice foreign minister, said in a statement carried on Monday by the official Korean Central News Agency.
Choe's comment followed her warning in late August that North Korea's "expectations of dialogue with the US are gradually disappearing", after Pyongyang conducted weapons tests to protest joint US-South Korean military exercises.
Asked about the proposal for lower-level talks in September, Trump told reporters: "I have a very good relationship with Chairman Kim. I always say having meetings is a good thing. We'll see what happens."
The period suggested by North Korea would correspond with the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
On Monday, Choe recalled Kim's comments that the North would wait until the end of the year for Washington to "quit its current calculation method".
She repeated Pyongyang's call for the US to come up with an "acceptable calculation" or risk jeopardising the entire diplomatic process.
When asked by AFP about the latest North Korean offer, a State Department official replied: "We don't have any meetings to announce at this time."
Nuclear warhead development
Kim and Trump adopted a vaguely-worded statement on the "complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula" at their first summit in Singapore in June last year, but little progress has since been made on dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear programme.
A report published by a United Nations panel of experts last week said North Korea's development of nuclear warheads has not stopped, despite the moratorium it declared on nuclear blasts and long-range missile launches.
US officials have called North Korea's recent short-range missile launches provocations, although Trump himself has avoided criticising them.
Pyongyang is barred from ballistic missile tests under UN resolutions, and its previous short-range missile tests have been condemned by European members of the UN Security Council.
North Korea is under heavy US and UN sanctions over its weapons programmes, and has criticised Washington's position that sanctions against the isolated regime will not be lifted until the country gives up its nuclear weapons.
Pyongyang's latest comments on talks come after the US special envoy to North Korea, Stephen Biegun, said the North must stop blocking nuclear talks.
"If we are to succeed, North Korea must set aside its search for obstacles to negotiations and instead seek the opportunities for engagement while that opportunity lasts," he said on Friday.
"We have made clear to North Korea that we are prepared to engage as soon as we hear from them," he said on Friday. "We are ready, but we cannot do this by ourselves."
The United States formally concluded that North Korea ordered the murder of Kim Jong-Nam, a half-brother and potential rival to ruler Kim Jong-Un, with the VX nerve agent.
"This public display of contempt for universal norms against chemical weapons use further demonstrates the reckless nature of North Korea and underscores that we cannot afford to tolerate a North Korean WMD program of any kind," US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.
The finding triggered another layer of US economic sanctions against Pyongyang, just as South Korea reported that the regime is ready for talks to end a nuclear standoff.
Suspected North Korean hackers have attempted an attack targeting a major joint military exercise between Seoul and Washington that starts on Monday, South Korean police said.
South Korea and the United States will kick off the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield drills on Monday through August 31 to counter growing threats from the nuclear-armed North.
Pyongyang views such exercises as rehearsals for an invasion and has repeatedly warned it would take "overwhelming" action in response. — AFP
The United States says it was committed to freeing an American soldier who crossed into North Korea, as it voiced caution on remarks attributed to him by Pyongyang.
In North Korea's first comments about last month's crossing of Travis King, state media said Tuesday that the soldier, who is Black, said he fled "racial discrimination" and bore "ill feeling" toward the US Army.
"We would caution everyone to consider the source here. That is incredibly important," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tells reporters when asked about King's purported remarks. — AFP
A US soldier is believed to have been detained by North Korea after crossing the heavily fortified border -- an incident likely to further aggravate Washington's troubled relations with the nuclear-armed state.
Hours later, North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea, according to the South Korean military -- an apparent response to the first visit by an American nuclear-armed submarine to a South Korean port in decades.
The events underscored the diplomatic tightrope being walked by Seoul and Washington in the face of an increasingly assertive Pyongyang. — AFP
North Korea threatens to shoot down any US spy planes violating its airspace and condemns Washington's plans to deploy a nuclear missile submarine near the Korean peninsula.
A spokesperson for the North's Ministry of National Defense says the United States has "intensified espionage activities beyond the wartime level", with "provocative" flights made by US spy aircraft over eight straight days this month, and one reconnaissance plane intruding into its airspace over the East Sea "several times".
"There is no guarantee that such shocking accident as downing of the US Air Force strategic reconnaissance plane will not happen in the East Sea of Korea," the spokesperson says in a statement, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. — AFP
North Korea has accused a US spy aircraft of violating its airspace and condemned Washington's plans to deploy a nuclear missile submarine near the Korean peninsula.
A spokesperson for the North's Ministry of National Defence said "provocative" flights were made by US spy aircraft this month, with one reconnaissance plane intruding into its airspace over the East Sea "several times".
"There is no guarantee that such shocking accident as downing of the U.S. Air Force strategic reconnaissance plane will not happen in the East Sea of Korea," the spokesperson said in a statement, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. — AFP
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