North Korea dismisses diplomatic solution to crisis: country’s nuclear missile capabilities unknown

April 15, 2013 – SOUTH KOREA – North Korea on Sunday dismissed Seoul’s offer of dialogue as a “cunning gimmick,” darkening hopes for defused tension and normalizing the suspended joint industrial park anytime soon. President Park Geun-hye proposed talks with Pyongyang on Thursday to resolve the dispute over the Gaeseong industrial complex sparked by the North’s ban on South Koreans’ entry and withdrawal of its workers. The North’s propaganda agency responded that the overture was an “empty shell” intended “to conceal (South Korea’s) confrontational identity. “It is too brazen for those who have been engrossed in nuclear war games and fratricidal confrontation plots to mention dialogue without saying a word about apologies or their responsibilities,” Pyongyang’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. The agency demanded the South give up its “hostile attitude” if it wants talks. “Whether the dialogue is realized depends on the attitude of the South Korean government,” it added. The Unification Ministry said it was too early to interpret the North’s response as a final refusal. “The report is an initial response to our offer so that we should watch the situation for some time,” the ministry said in a message to reporters. After weeks of tit-for-tat shows of force and verbal threats, hopes were growing for a diplomatic solution as Seoul and Washington offered peace overtures late last week and Beijing also promised efforts to help persuade it to give up its nuclear weapons. Since last Thursday, North Korea has also stopped moving around its transporter-erector-launchers for short- and mid-range missiles believed to be technically ready for test-firing, Seoul officials said. The mobile launchers were seen repeatedly changing locations on the east coast last week in an apparent attempt to interfere with intelligence monitoring by South Korea and the U.S.  “The vehicles carrying Musudan, Rodong and Scud missiles have not moved and been standing in the same place since two days ago,” an unnamed government official was quoted as saying on Saturday by Yonhap News. “There are no signs of an imminent missile launch.” The North’s warlike rhetoric is also letting up after churning out threats of a nuclear strike on and a “sacred war” with South Korea and the U.S. –The Korean Herald

 

North Korea will not warn South before an attack: North Korea has upped the temperature on its neighbors, warning in a new threat that it would not give any advance notice before attacking South Korea. “Our retaliatory action will start without any notice from now,” Pyongyang said in a statement published Tuesday by its official news agency, KCNA. North Korea said it was responding to what it called insults from the “puppet authorities” in the South, claiming that there had been a rally against North Korea in Seoul. It called the rally a “monstrous criminal act.” The renewed threats came a day after North Koreans celebrated the birthday of their country’s founder, Kim Il Sung, who launched the Korean War. On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged the regime in Pyongyang to ditch its nuclear program and put a lid on its fiery rhetoric if it wants to hold talks. “The United States has made clear many times what the conditions are for our entering talks and they haven’t changed,’ Kerry said during an interview with CNN’s Jill Dougherty in Tokyo. “The conditions have to be met where the North has to move towards denuclearization, indicate seriousness in doing so by reducing these threats, stop the testing, and indicate it’s actually prepared to negotiate,” he said. Kerry was speaking at the end of a three-day trip that focused on securing fresh commitments from South Korea, China and Japan to try to persuade Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table and renounce nuclear weapons. His visit followed weeks of dramatic threats by Kim Jong Un’s regime, including that of a nuclear strike on the United States and South Korea. The White House announced Monday that South Korean President Park Geun-hye will visit President Barack Obama in Washington on May 7. “President Park’s visit underscores the importance of the U.S.-ROK (Republic of Korea) alliance as a linchpin of peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and in the Asia Pacific region, and of the central role of alliances in the President’s Asia-Pacific rebalancing effort,” the White House said in a statement. There is uncertainty about how advanced the North’s nuclear weapons program is, but Kerry on Monday reiterated the U.S. government view that Pyongyang doesn’t yet have the capacity to carry out a nuclear attack. Last month, North Korea scrapped the 1953 truce that effectively ended the Korean War and said it was nullifying the joint declaration on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. –CNN