N-E Asia on high alert for further N Korean threats

Tokyo

TENSIONS mounted sharply in Northeast Asia on Tuesday as a US nuclear-powered submarine capable of launching ballistic missiles docked in the South Korean port of Busan ahead of the expected arrival of a strike group of US vessels despatched by Washington as a warning to North Korea.

The movements at sea came amid an intense flurry of diplomatic activity involving the US, Japan, China and South Korea and designed to prepare for a possible further missile launch by North Korea to coincide with the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People's Army

Japanese newspapers ran front page stories on preparations to deal with the possibility of a missile attack from North Korea on Japan while reports noted "surging demand for nuclear shelters and radiation-blocking air purifiers" in Japan in recent days as North Korea tensions mounts.

"Matching the flurry of diplomatic and military activity in North Asia, the State Department in Washington said that US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would chair a special ministerial meeting of the UN Security Council on North Korea on Friday," Reuters reported.

Mr Tillerson, along 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 entire U.S. Senate on North Korea on Wednesday, Senate aides reportedly said.

Meanwhile, North Korea conducted a massive live-fire drill Tuesday to mark the foundation of its military. South Korea's Yonhap News Agency said that North Korea appeared to have deployed a large number of long-range artillery units in the region of Wonsan on its east coast.

At the same time. South Korea's Navy said it was conducting a live-fire exercise with US Navy destroyers nearthe Korean peninsula and would soon join the US Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group approaching the region, Reuters said.

The carrier group was sent to the region as a warning to North Korea and a show of solidarity with US allies but North Korea has threatned to "sink" the massive aircraft carrier which is powered by two nuclear reactors.

North Korea said Tuesday in a state media commentary marking the 85th anniversary of the foundation of the Korean People's Army's that its military was prepared "to bring to closure the history of U.S. 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 precision and miniaturised nuclear weapons and submarine-launched ballistic missiles," the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said,

Senior envoys from South Korea, Japan, and the United States met in Tokyo to discuss North Korea's refusal to abandon its nuclear weapons programme. These included talks between China's nuclear envoy, Wu Dawei, and Japanese Foreign Ministry officials.

"We believe China has a very, very important role to play," US envoy for North Korea policy, Joseph Yun, said: "As we discuss these things all our steps and every part of them will be in coordination and consultation with our partners"

Kim Hong-kyun, South Korea's special representative for Korean peninsula peace and security affairs, said on Tuesday that he discussed ways to gain cooperation from China and Russia in dealing with North Korea.

A day earlier, US President Donald Trump called for tougher new UN sanctions on Pyongyang, saying that North Korea reprsented a global threat and "a problem that we have to finally solve". He added that,"the status quo in North Korea is unacceptable."

Meanwhile, the official China Daily said on Tuesday it was time for Pyongyang and Washington to retreat from harsh rhetoric and heed the voices of reason calling for a peaceful resolution.

"Judging from their recent words and deeds, policymakers in Pyongyang have seriously misread the UN sanctions, which are aimed at its nuclear missile provocations, not its system or leadership," the newspaper said in an editorial.

"They are perilously overestimating their own strength and underestimating the hazards they are brewing for themselves," it added

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