NK live-fire drill as top envoys meet
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NORTH Korea conducted a live-fire exercise yesterday to mark the foundation of its military. At the same time, a US submarine docked in South Korea in a show of force.
The port call by the USS Michigan came as a US aircraft carrier strike group steamed toward Korean waters and as top envoys from South Korea, Japan and the United States met in Tokyo.
Fears have risen in recent weeks that North Korea would conduct another nuclear test or long-range missile launch in defiance of UN sanctions.
But instead of a nuclear test or missile launch, it deployed a large number of long-range artillery units in the region of Wonsan on its east coast for a live-fire drill, South Korea’s military said. North Korea has an air base in Wonsan and missiles have been tested there.
“North Korea is conducting a large-scale firing drill in Wonsan areas this afternoon,” South Korea’s Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
The South Korean military was monitoring the situation and “firmly maintaining readiness.” it said.
South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency said earlier the exercise was possibly supervised by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
North Korea’s state media was defiant in a commentary marking the 85th anniversary of the foundation of the Korean People’s Army, saying its military was prepared “to bring to closure the history of US scheming and nuclear blackmail.”
“There is no limit to the strike power of the People’s Army armed with our style of cutting-edge military equipment including various precision and miniaturized nuclear weapons and submarine-launched ballistic missiles,” the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a front-page editorial.
North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threat is perhaps the most serious security challenge confronting US President Donald Trump. He has vowed to prevent North Korea being able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile and has said all options are on the table, including a military strike.
Trump sent the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group for exercises off the Korean Peninsula as a warning to North Korea and a show of solidarity with US allies.
South Korea’s navy said it was conducting a live-fire exercise with US destroyers in waters west of the peninsula and would soon join the strike group.
China has repeatedly called for calm, and its envoy for Korean affairs Wu Dawei was in Tokyo yesterday.
“We hope that all parties, including Japan, can work with China to promote an early peaceful resolution of the issue, and play the role, put forth the effort, and assume the responsibility that they should,” foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters in Beijing.
South Korea’s envoy, Kim Hong-kyun, said they had discussed how to get Russia to help press North Korea.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin tomorrow, the Kremlin said.
On Monday, the State Department in Washington said US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would chair a meeting of the UN Security Council on North Korea on Friday.
Tillerson, with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Joint Chiefs chairman General Joseph Dunford, would also hold a rare briefing for the US Senate today.
A North Korean spokesman said the meetings reflected US pressure that could “ignite a full-out war” on the Korean Peninsula.
“The reality of today again proves the decision to strengthen nuclear power in quality and quantity under the banner of pursuing economic development and nuclear power was the correct one,” he said.
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