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N. Korea Could Be Preparing New Missile Launch

N. Korea Could Be Preparing New Missile Launch
N. Korea Could Be Preparing New Missile Launch

North Korea could be preparing another missile launch, Seoul said Monday as it strengthened its defenses following Pyongyang’s biggest-ever nuclear test and declaration it had a hydrogen bomb.

The South and the United States will deploy more of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense missile launchers that have infuriated Beijing, the defense ministry said, AFP reported.

The South had requested the US deploy strategic assets such as aircraft carriers and bombers to the peninsula, Defense Minister Song Young-Moo said, but denied reports Seoul was seeking the return of US tactical nuclear weapons.

Signs that North Korea was “preparing for another ballistic missile launch have consistently been detected since Sunday’s test”, the ministry said.

It did not indicate when a launch might take place, but said it could involve an ICBM being fired into the Pacific Ocean to raise pressure on Washington further.

After Sunday’s test the United States warned it could launch a “massive military response” to threats from North Korea that would be “both effective and overwhelming”.

“We are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said, but warned: “We have many options to do so.”

Trump called an emergency meeting of his national security advisers and had his second telephone call of the weekend with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

But he did not talk to South Korea’s Moon Jae-In for more than 24 hours —instead accusing Seoul of “appeasement”, raising jitters in Seoul about the two countries’ decades-old alliance.

Moon, who advocates engagement as well as penalties to bring Pyongyang to the negotiating table, called for new United Nations sanctions to “completely isolate North Korea.”

 

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