F-22 Stealth Fighter Jets Arriving in Korea

His report, dated January 19 but published on Monday, also said three experts should be appointed to find the best legal path to hold North Korea to account and find “creative and practical” ways to establish the truth and ensure justice for victims.

North Korea also labeled as “laughable” Washington’s new sanctions against Pyongyang, which were signed into law by President Barack Obama on Thursday and are aimed at denying the North the money to develop miniaturized warheads and the long-range missiles required to deliver them.

“The U.S. maintains an ironclad commitment” to the defense of South Korea, he said.

F-22 fighter jets stand at an air base in Osan, Gyeonggi Province on February 3.

A nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS John C. Stennis, is also scheduled to join the annual South Korea-US military exercise slated for March, Yonhap news agency said. Instead, U.S. dollars were paid to the North Korean government, which siphoned off most of the money and paid only what it wanted to the employees in North Korean currency and store vouchers, according to a statement from Seoul’s’ Unification Ministry on Sunday. Park warned Tuesday that North Korea faces a collapse if it does not abandon its nuclear program.

North Korea said it launched an Earth observation satellite, but South Korea, the US and the United Nations said it violated a ban on Pyongyang’s missile technology.

Her parliamentary speech was arranged to explain Seoul’s decision last week to shut down an inter-Korean factory park in the DPRK’s border city of Kaesong as part of its punitive actions to Pyongyang’s nuclear test and long-range rocket launch.

It is unusual for a top South Korean official to publicly touch upon such a government collapse in North Korea because of worries about how sensitive North Korea is to talk of its authoritarian government losing power. Pyongyang retaliated by expelling all the South Koreans there, put its military in charge of the area and cut off key communication hotlines between the Koreas.

South Korean officials believe the North deliberately blew up the rocket’s first stage after burnout to prevent South Korea from retrieving debris.

Seoul officials said North Korea was able to divert the Kaesong payments because the workers there were not paid directly.

During the upcoming negotiations on the THAAD deployment, Park said, her country will strengthen cooperation with the United States and Japan, while laying stress on consulting with China and Russian Federation.

In her speech, Park indicated that South Korea should be more willing to act unilaterally if other countries lagged behind. The allies say their drills are defensive in nature.