More sabre-rattling from the Dear Leader

lily wrote:Kinda makes sense now, LL.

Do you think Microsoft is safe from him now?

bb1 wrote:Superb photos, LL - but what a God-awful place! No lights, no cars, no people, no animals except those dead ducks - drab, grey, empty except for staged Spontaneous Merriment.

U.S., China agree to cooperate on Korea crisis

By Anne Gearan, Saturday, April 13, 4:16 PM

BEIJING — Secretary of State John F. Kerry lobbied China to lean harder on its Marxist ally, North Korea, arguing Saturday that the North’s escalating belligerence threatens the entire Pacific region and the interests of its benefactor China.

He won a modest restatement of the shared goal of a non-nuclear Korean Peninsula, and a public call from China’s foreign policy chief, Yang Jiechi, for a way out of the current tension “peacefully, through dialogue” — a clear warning to North Korea that its main economic and political protector does not want a new Asian war.

“From this moment forward, we are committed to taking actions in order to make good on that goal,” Kerry said before a dinner with Yang. “We are determined to make that goal a reality. China and the United States must together take steps in order to achieve the goal of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula.”

U.S. and Asian officials say China alone has the economic and political leverage with North Korea to make the case to leader Kim Jong Un that he must step back from a confrontation that has been building for months.

“China is firmly committed to upholding peace and stability and advancing the denuclearization process on the Korean Peninsula,” Yang said.

The two nations agreed to work together on the model of international talks with North Korea that fell apart nearly four years ago. No new talks were announced, and China said nothing about any specific outreach or ultimatum to North Korea.

The United States is trying to appeal to China’s self-interest, arguing that North Korea has become a liability instead of an asset, undermining the central Chinese goal of stability and making China look ineffectual. North Korea has defied Chinese warnings, including not to conduct a third nuclear test, and recent Chinese statements about the North reflect growing frustration and alarm.

“I think it’s clear to everybody in the world that no country in the world has as close a relationship or as significant an impact on the DPRK than China,” Kerry said Friday in Seoul, using the the initials of North Korea’s formal name. “China has an enormous ability to help make a difference here.”

China has prevented the collapse of impoverished North Korea with huge fuel subsidies, favorable trade arrangements and food aid for a nation unable to feed itself.

Its leverage over Pyongyang comes from that assistance, and from the two nations’ long-standing political alliance.

China backed North Korea during the Korean War and has long seen its de facto client state as a valuable buffer against U.S.-backed South Korea and the tens of thousands of U.S. forces stationed there.

Chinese leaders whom Kerry met with earlier on Saturday made oblique references to the tense North Korean standoff in brief public remarks.

“I must say there are immense common interests between China and the United States,” Premier Li Keqiang told Kerry through an interpreter. “Our common interests far outweigh our differences.”

Li said both are big countries and added, “We shoulder the responsibility for peace and stability in our region and the world.”

Kerry told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that he hoped to launch a broader cooperation “ to define for both of us what the model relationship should be and how two great powers, China and the United States, can work effectively an solve problems.”

In addition to a third nuclear test this year and a successful long-range missile test in December, North Korea has made a series of threats and symbolic moves such as officially canceling the 60-year armistice that ended the Korean War and shuttering a showcase joint economic project with South Korea.

The threat of conflict with North Korea is dominating Kerry’s first trip to Asia as secretary of state, overshadowing economic and trade issues at the heart of the gradually warming relationship between the United States and China.

North Korea also partly pushed aside U.S. concerns over Chinese military expansion, human rights practices and alleged cybercrime, although U.S. officials said there would be no quid pro quo of lessened U.S. pressure on those issues in return for Chinese help reining in its ally.

Kerry addressed the crisis directly in Seoul on Thursday, assuring a jittery ally that the United States will defend it. Both Kerry and South Korean leaders appealed for calm.

North Korea’s Kim has readied mid-range missiles for a possible symbolic test launch, but Kerry’s visit to nearby Seoul passed without that warning shot.

North Korea outlines exacting terms for talks with U.S., South Korea
By Jethro Mullen, CNN
April 18, 2013 -- Updated 0709 GMT (1509 HKT)

North Korea lashes out at U.S. response

(CNN) -- North Korea on Thursday set out demanding conditions for any talks with Washington and Seoul, calling for the withdrawal of U.N. sanctions against it and a permanent end to joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises.

The United States and South Korea "should immediately stop all their provocative acts against the DPRK and apologize for all of them," the North's National Defense Commission said in a statement carried by state-run media, using the shortened version of North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The commission listed a number of "practical measures" it said the United States and South Korea should take if they want to avoid "sledge-hammer retaliatory blows of the army and people" of North Korea and if "they truly stand for dialogue and negotiations."

But the nature of the demands, such as the lifting of the U.N. sanctions imposed after the North's latest nuclear test, appeared to offer almost no chance of negotiations between the two sides amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

A torrent of unnerving threats from Pyongyang in recent weeks has strained already fragile relations in the region. The North's rhetoric intensified when the U.N. Security Council voted last month to slap the tougher sanctions on the regime and amid the U.S.-South Korean military drills under way in South Korea at the moment.

The United States said this month that for it to enter talks, North Korea would have to show a serious commitment to moving away from its nuclear program, something the regime of Kim Jong Un insists it won't do.

On Thursday, the North suggested that the United States would have to make the first move on the nuclear issue.

"They should bear in mind that the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula can begin with the pullout of the nuclear war means introduced by the U.S. and this may lead to the global denuclearization," the defense commission said.

North Korea has repeatedly described the annual military exercises taking place in South Korea as threats of nuclear war, singling out aspects of the drills like the practice mission flown by U.S. stealth bombers as evidence. The stealth bombers can carry conventional or nuclear weapons, but they used inert munitions in their training flight.

The United States says such displays of military strength during the drills were aimed at reassuring it allies in the region, not antagonizing the regime in Pyongyang.

President Barack Obama warned Kim Jong Un this week that the North's threats against the United States and South Korea had only served to isolate the regime further.

"This is the same kind of pattern that we saw his father engage in and his grandfather before that," Obama said in an interview with NBC News broadcast Tuesday, referring to the two previous North Korean leaders Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung.

"Since I came into office, the one thing I was clear about was, we're not going to reward this kind of provocative behavior. You don't get to bang your spoon on the table and somehow you get your way," he said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/18/world/asia/koreas-tensions/index.html

lily wrote:Non starter, LL?