US threatens North Korea, says will protect Japan, South Korea to full potential

Tokyo

In the wake of North Korea’s continued missile tests and threats, the United States has warned that it will defend its allies South Korea and Japan with full capability, including nuclear, conventional and missile defense. US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said on Tuesday that North Korea’s firing of ballistic missiles and artillery shelling in recent weeks was a provocative military action.

North Korea is calling it an exercise for the use of strategic nuclear weapons. “North Korea’s recent military action is irresponsible, dangerous and destabilising the Korean peninsula,” Wendy Sherman said during talks with South Korea’s Deputy Foreign Minister Cho Hundong in Tokyo.

The US Secretary of State said North Korea needs to understand that the US is committed to the security of South Korea and the Japanese. Sherman met Japan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Takeo Mori on Tuesday.

Senior diplomats from South Korea, the United States and Japan held high-level talks on regional and global security issues on Wednesday amid concerns over the possibility of North Korea’s nuclear test. South Korea’s first deputy foreign minister Cho Hyun-dong held a trilateral session with his American and Japanese counterparts – Wendy Sherman and Takeo Mori, Yonhap news agency reported. The session was aimed at discussing ways to deal with north Korea’s emerging threats.

This week’s session comes amid speculation that the Kim Jong-un regime may soon go ahead with another nuclear test and carry out provocative acts. Officials in Seoul say that secretly North Korea is fully prepared for its first nuclear test since September 2017.

North Korea fired about a dozen ballistic missiles in just three weeks since late September, bringing the total number of ballistic missiles launched this year to 44, the largest number of ballistic missiles fired in a year. Earlier this month, the inclusive country fired hundreds of artillery shots into maritime buffer zones in the Eastern and Yellow Seas, set under a 2018 inter-Korean agreement to ease military tensions.