WASHINGTON -- The United States calls on North Korea to avoid provocations and return to negotiations on dismantling its nuclear weapons program, the State Department said Friday.The comment comes after North Korea fired two projectiles from a super-large multiple rocket launcher on Thursday in its 13th major weapons test this year.The top nuclear envoys of South Korea, the United States and Japan spoke by phone following the launch to share their assessments and coordinate future steps, Seoul&l

North Korea fired verbal shots at Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday for mistaking Pyongyang's recent test-fire of its super-large multiple launch rocket system for a ballistic missile launch.In a statement released by the Korean Central News Agency, a vice director general of the Department of Japanese Affairs at the North Korean foreign ministry also said Abe "may see what a real ballistic missile is in the not distant future and under his nose. North Korea claimed Friday that

The government is considering repairing some of South Korea’s facilities at North Korea’s Kumgangsan tourism complex, the Ministry of Unification said Friday, as the North continues to demand their demolition. “Our side is planning measures to repair the temporary facilities that cannot be reused in Onjong-ri or the port of Goseong,” Kim Eun-han, a deputy spokesman for the Unification Ministry, told a regular press briefing. In October, Pyongyang notified Seoul that

North Korea appears to have tested a super-large multiple rocket launcher as a warning sign that it can return to its past behavior of resorting to provocations if it fails to get what it wants during talks with the United States, Seoul's spy agency said Friday.The National Intelligence Service also assessed as "premeditated" the North's recent artillery firing drills on an inter-Korean border island in the Yellow Sea.On Thursday, the North fired two short-range projectiles in a row fr

South Korea's chief nuclear envoy has held telephone talks with his counterparts of the United States and Japan and discussed North Korea's latest firing of projectiles, Seoul's foreign ministry said Friday. Lee Do-hoon, special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, spoke by phone with Steven Biegun, special representative for North Korea, early Friday (Seoul time). He spoke to Shigeki Takizaki, head of the Japanese foreign ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau l

North Korea said Friday it successfully tested a super-large multiple rocket launcher's successive firing system under leader Kim Jong-un's guidance in the launch of two projectiles the previous day.On Thursday, South Korea's military said the North fired two projectiles from what is presumed to be a super-large multiple rocket launcher from Yeonpo in the country's eastern South Hamgyong Province toward the East Sea.The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the Academy of Defence Scie

North Korea fired two unidentified projectiles into the East Sea on Thursday, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said, in the latest in a series of military moves amid stalled denuclearization talks with the United States. The projectiles were fired from areas of Yeonpo in the country's eastern South Hamgyong Proince into the waters off the east coast at around 4:59 p.m., the JCS said in a release. No other details were immediately available, including the projectiles' type and flight range.&qu

South Korea has completed an operation to drive a North Korean merchant ship out of its waters after the vessel strayed across the Yellow Sea border due to an engine problem, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday. The ship was detected crossing the Northern Limit Line, the de facto sea border in the Yellow Sea, early Wednesday. South Korea's military later confirmed it to be a merchant ship from the North and broadcast warnings and fired warning shots according to procedure. North Korean sailo

Vice Unification Minister Suh Ho will visit the inter-Korean liaison office in North Korea's border town of Kaesong this week, though there will be no meeting with his North Korean counterpart, a ministry official said Thursday.Suh's trip to the office on Friday comes at a time when inter-Korean relations remain stalled, with Pyongyang threatening to end their joint tour program to Mount Kumgang on the North's east coast.  But the vice minister, who serves as the South Korean head of the of

A North Korean merchant vessel crossed the de facto maritime border into South Korean waters in the Yellow Sea on Wednesday and was headed northward and expected to fully cross the de facto maritime border into the north around midnight, Seoul’s military said. According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military detected an unidentified ship that crossed the Northern Limit Line and entered South Korean waters on the northwestern side of Baengnyeong Island at 6:40 a.m. At around 12:30 p.m.,

South Korea is struggling to find a way to deal with the North’s decision to tear down its facilities at Kumgangsan tourism complex, as the regime continues to be reticent. Despite repeated requests to discuss the issue through a face-to-face meeting, a North Korean propaganda site Uriminzokkiri said Wednesday that the country’s decision to demolish the facilities -- built by the South Korean government and companies -- in the tourist zone on its east coast remains unchanged. &l

The chief of a US think tank said South Korea currently pays an adequate amount -- $1 billion -- for the upkeep of US Forces Korea, Voice of America reported Wednesday. John Hamre, president and CEO of the Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an interview with the US broadcaster that the US was stationing troops in South Korea for its own interests and that there is no minimum amount that Seoul should pay.Defense cost-sharing talks between Seoul and Washin

WASHINGTON -- US President Donald Trump estimated that as many as 100 million people could have been killed had the United States gone to war with North Korea under the previous administration of President Barack Obama, according to a new book based on interviews with the president.Trump's comment came during a January 2019 meeting at the White House with Doug Wead, a New York Times bestselling author and former adviser to two American presidents, whose book, "Inside Trump's White House: Th

South Korea has lodged an official complaint against Pyongyang for conducting a live firing drill on an island inside the buffer zone near the de facto maritime border, Seoul’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday. North Korea’s state-operated Korean Central News Agency reported Monday that its leader Kim Jong-un had ordered a firing drill involving coastal artilleries on the Changrin Islets, just north of the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea. As the live firing exercise took place ins

A state-run foundation supporting North Korean defectors said Monday it will press ahead with a funeral for a defector and her six-year-old son this week, about four months after they were found dead, apparently from starvation.The 42-year-old Han Sung-ok and her son, surnamed Kim, were found dead at their home in southern Seoul in late July, sparking widespread suspicion they starved to death two months earlier. Defectors groups launched strong protests, accusing the government of not taking pr