Seoul: Pyongyang used money from joint factories for weapons

United States has temporarily deployed an additional Patriot missile battery in South Korea in response to North Korea’s nuclear test and a long-range rocket launch.

Wang Yi also said in an interview that Beijing was urging the United States not to deploy its sophisticated THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) missile defence system to South Korea, saying it could also be used to target China.

The U.S. military command in South Korea says that an air defense battery unit from Ft.

Under UN Security Council resolutions, the DPRK is banned from test-firing any rockets based on ballistic missile technology.

The new report, reaffirming a judgment about the KN-08 made by the Pentagon in 2013, arrives amid rising tensions after North Korea conducted a nuclear test on 6 January and launched a long-range rocket on 7 February. “I hope Japan’s unilateral sanctions will lead the worldwide community to promptly execute strict measures based on a U.N. Security Council resolution”.

As North and South Korea come dangerously close to armed conflict, the USA has deployed more Patriot missiles to its Asian ally.

This failure of leadership has allowed Kim Jun-un to circumvent global sanctions, build his nation’s arsenal and intensify its cyber-espionage activity-all at the expense of the North Korean people who are tortured and starved by his regime.

Legislation calling for widening North Korea sanctions passed the U.S. House of Representatives Friday with a vote of 408-2, following Wednesday’s Senate vote which passed unanimously 96-0.

South Korea and the United States are expected to begin talks next week on possible deployment of the system.

James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said during congressional testimony earlier this week that North Korea has expanded a uranium enrichment facility and restarted a plutonium reactor that could start recovering material for nuclear weapons in weeks or months.

In talks with South Korean foreign minister Yun Byung-se, Mr Kerry expressed support for Seoul’s decision to shut down the factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong and discussed a broad range of potential sanctions against the North, South Korea’s foreign ministry said. There are strong suspicions that North Korea has forged an alliance with Iran on sharing nuclear and missile technology, with reports of Iranian scientists attending nuclear tests and rocket launches.

North Korea planned to disband a committee set up in 2014 to look into the whereabouts of Japanese abductees, KCNA said, adding that Japan’s “provocative acts of hostility” toward North Korea would ensure further countermeasures.

Reiterating China’s stance on sanctions against the DPRK, he said “it remains to be our common goal to work together and find a way to bring the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue back to the right track of dialogue and negotiations, which is fully in line with the interests of all parties, including China and the United States”.

A senior South Korean defense ministry official said Friday detailed discussions on THAAD deployment would kick off as early as next week.