North Korea has shifted a missile with “considerable range” to its east coast, South Korea’s foreign minister says.
Kim Kwan-jin played down concerns that the missile could target the US mainland, and said the North’s intentions were not yet clear.
Pyongyang earlier renewed threats of a nuclear strike against the US, though its missiles are not believed to be capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The US is responding to North Korea by moving missile defence shields to Guam.
Meanwhile Russia said Pyongyang’s attempts to “violate decisions of the UN Security Council are categorically unacceptable”. “This radically complicates, if it doesn’t in practice shut off, the prospects for resuming six-party talks,” foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement on Thursday. The talks involving North and South Korea, the US, Russia, China and Japan were last held in late 2008.
US ramps up defences over N Korea threats: The North Korean army has warned Washington that its military has been cleared to wage an attack using “smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear” weapons. “The moment of explosion is approaching fast,” the military said, warning that war could break out “today or tomorrow”.
The statement, carried by the Korean Central News Agency early on Thursday, said troops had been authorised to counter US aggression with “powerful practical military counteractions”. The warning, the latest in a series of escalating threats against the US and South Korea, came after the Pentagon said it would deploy a missile defence system to the US Pacific territory of Guam to strengthen the region’s protections against a possible attack. Despite the rhetoric, analysts say they do not expect a nuclear attack by North Korea, which knows the move could trigger a destructive, suicidal war that no one in the region wants. Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, said that he was “deeply concerned” over rising tensions on Thursday.
