SEOUL/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - North Korea said on Saturday it aims
to reach an "equilibrium" of military force with the United States,
which earlier signalled its patience for diplomacy is wearing thin after
Pyongyang fired a missile over Japan for the second time in under a month.
"Our final goal is to establish the equilibrium of real force with
the U.S. and make the U.S. rulers dare not talk about military option,"
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was quoted as saying by the state news agency,
KCNA.
Kim was shown beaming as he watched the missile fly from a moving
launcher in photos released by the agency, surrounded by several officials.
"The combat efficiency and reliability of Hwasong-12 were
thoroughly verified," said Kim as quoted by KCNA. Kim added the North's
goal of completing its nuclear force had "nearly reached the
terminal".
After the latest missile launch on Friday, White House National
Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said the United States was fast running out of
patience with North Korea's missile and nuclear programs.
"We've been kicking the can down the road, and we're out of
road," McMaster told reporters, referring to Pyongyang's repeated missile
tests in defiance of international pressure.
"For those ... who have been commenting on a lack of a military
option, there is a military option," he said, adding that it would not be
the Trump administration's preferred choice.
Also on Friday, the U.N. Security Council condemned the "highly
provocative" missile launch by North Korea.
It had already stepped up sanctions against North Korea in response to
a nuclear bomb test on Sept. 3, imposing a ban on North Korea's textile exports
and capping its imports of crude oil.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, echoed
McMaster's strong rhetoric, even as she said Washington's preferred resolution
to the crisis is through diplomacy and sanctions.
"What we are seeing is, they are continuing to be provocative,
they are continuing to be reckless and at that point there's not a whole lot
the Security Council is going to be able to do from here, when you've cut 90
percent of the trade and 30 percent of the oil," Haley said.
U.S. President Donald Trump said that he is "more confident than
ever that our options in addressing this threat are both effective and
overwhelming." He said at Joint Base Andrews near Washington that North
Korea "has once again shown its utter contempt for its neighbours and for
the entire world community."
MISSILE
North Korea's latest test missile flew over Hokkaido in northern Japan
on Friday and landed in the Pacific about 2,000 km (1,240 miles) to the east,
the Japanese government said.
It travelled about 3,700 km (2,300 miles) in total, according to South
Korea's military, far enough to reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, which
the North has threatened before.
"The range of this test was significant since North Korea
demonstrated that it could reach Guam with this missile," the Union of
Concerned Scientists advocacy group said in a statement. However, the accuracy
of the missile, still at an early stage of development, was low, it said.
On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Tillerson called on China,
Pyongyang's only ally, and Russia to apply more pressure on North Korea by
"taking direct actions of their own."
Beijing has pushed back, urging Washington to do more to rein in North
Korea.
"Honestly, I think the United States should be doing much more
than now, so that there's real effective international cooperation on this
issue," China's ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, said on
Friday.
"They should refrain from issuing more threats. They should do
more to find effective ways to resume dialogue and negotiation," he said,
while adding that China would never accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons
state.
North Korea staged its sixth and most powerful nuclear bomb test
earlier this month and in July tested long-range intercontinental ballistic
missiles capable of reaching at least parts of the U.S. mainland.
Last month, North Korea fired an intermediate range missile that also
flew over Hokkaido into the ocean.
Warning announcements about the latest missile blared in parts of
northern Japan, while many residents received alerts on their mobile phones or
saw warnings on TV telling them to seek refuge.
The U.S. military said it had detected a single intermediate range
ballistic missile but it did not pose a threat to North America or Guam.
Global equities investors largely shrugged off the latest missile test
by North Korea as shares on Wall Street set new highs on Friday.
DIFFERENCES OVER DIRECT TALKS
Trump has promised not to allow North Korea to threaten the United
States with a nuclear-tipped missile.
Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said the United States
needed to begin talks with North Korea, something that Washington has so far
ruled out.
"We called on our U.S. partners and others to implement political
and diplomatic solutions that are provided for in the resolution,"
Nebenzia told reporters after the Security Council meeting. "Without
implementing this, we also will consider it as a non-compliance with the
resolution."
Asked about the prospect for direct talks, a White House spokesman said,
"As the president and his national security team have repeatedly said, now
is not the time to talk to North Korea."
South Korean President Moon Jae-in also said dialogue with the North
was impossible at this point. He ordered officials to analyse and prepare for
possible new North Korean threats, including electromagnetic pulse and
biochemical attacks.
The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with
North Korea because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce and not a
peace treaty. The North accuses the United States, which has 28,500 troops in
South Korea, of planning to invade and regularly threatens to destroy it and
its Asian allies.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Michelle Nichols;
Additional reporting by Hideyuki Sano, William Mallard, Tim Kelly and Chehui
Peh in Tokyo, Jack Kim and Christine Kim in Seoul, Mohammad Zargham, Susan
Heavey, Makini Brice and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Tom Miles in Geneva;
Masha Tsvetkova and Polina Devitt in Moscow; Christian Shepherd in Beijing;
Writing by Frances Kerry; Editing by Alistair Bell and Cynthia Osterman)
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