The top American diplomat for East Asia said Wednesday he assumes North Korea continues to make nuclear weapons but declined to offer details.The remark by David Stilwell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, comes as Washington and Pyongyang are expected to resume denuclearization negotiations soon, although no meetings have been scheduled. Talks have been stalled since February's summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ended with

No offensive weapons are deployed on North Korea's border island of Hambak in the Yellow Sea, the defense ministry said Wednesday, after security concerns arose following media reports that the communist nation could have deployed weapons like multiple rocket launchers there."Not a single attack weapon exists on the island," a senior defense ministry official told reporters, noting that the deployment of those weapons may constitute a violation of an inter-Korean military pact signed l

North Korea's main plutonium-producing reactor has been shut down for enough time for it to be re-fuelled, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a recent report, stressing Pyongyang's nuclear activities remain a cause for "serious concern."The 5-megawatt reactor at the North's Yongbyon nuclear complex showed signs of intermittent operation between mid-August and late November last year, but there have been no indications of operations there since early December, the agency sai

MOSCOW (AFP) -- Three Russian coast guards were injured Tuesday in a clash with North Korean fishing boats in the East Sea, after which 80 fishermen were detained, Russia's FSB security service said.The FSB security service, which controls the border and coast guard, said in a statement that guards observed two fishing vessels and 11 motor boats while on duty in Russian waters of the Eas Sea.The larger boat's crew attacked coast guard officers who boarded the vessel, and three officers &quo

North Korea's coast guard chased off Japanese fishing boats illegally operating in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) late last month, Pyongyang's state media reported Tuesday, rebutting Tokyo's claims that armed North Korean boats had trespassed in its own zone. "The expulsion of the Japanese ships from our zone is a just and righteous exercise of our sovereign rights," North Korea's foreign ministry was quoted as saying by the English-language report of the Korean Central News Agency

North uses Sept. 19 military agreement to reproach South’s military

WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) -- US President Donald Trump on Monday declined to comment on a newspaper report that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had invited him to visit Pyongyang and said conditions were not ready yet for such a visit."The relationship is very good but I don't want to comment on that," Trump told reporters at the White House when asked whether Kim had invited him to North Korea.A South Korean newspaper on Monday cited diplomatic sources as saying Kim had invited

US President Donald Trump said Monday it is not the right time to visit Pyongyang after a newspaper reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un invited him for what would be their third summit.Trump said last week that he expected to meet Kim again "at some point" this year.The South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo reported Monday that Kim invited Trump to Pyongyang in a letter sent in August."I don't want to comment on that," Trump told reporters at the White House when ask

A North Korean official said Monday that working-level talks with the United States will likely take place "in a few weeks" but emphasized that discussions on denuclearization will be possible only after all threats to its regime are fully removed. In a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency, the director-general of the North Korean foreign ministry's department of American affairs also warned that it will be the US that determines whether the upcoming meeting serves

Foreign minister confuses lawmakers on whether North Korean leader’s letter to Trump was different to one already made public

From driver to ‘shameless’ meddler, Moon’s role in NK issues remains to be seen

A Japanese delegation arrived in Pyongyang, North Korea's state news agency said Saturday, amid soured relations between the two countries.The Yamanashi prefectural delegation led by Shingo Kanemaru arrived in Pyongyang, the Korean Central News Agency said in a one-sentence dispatch.Kanemaru is the second son of late Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Shin Kanemaru, who met with North Korea's founder Kim Il-sung during a visit to Pyongyang in 1990 with other Japanese politicians.It remains unclear w

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- The US Treasury on Friday placed sanctions on three North Korea government-sponsored hacking operations which it said were behind the theft of possibly hundreds of millions of dollars and destructive cyber-attacks on infrastructure.The Treasury said the three groups -- dubbed Lazarus Group, Bluenoroff and Andariel -- were behind major thefts from financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges, as well as the 2018 WannaCry hack that crippled Britain's National Health Serv

The number of North Korean women of childbearing age will likely decline by 400,000 as of 2035, a report showed.According to the report by Population Reference Bureau (PRB), a Washington-based population survey agency, the number of women aged 15-49 in North Korea is expected to stand at 6.2 million in 2035, down from 6.6 million estimated last year.The North's total fertility rate -- the average number of babies that a woman bears in her lifetime -- hit an all-time low of 1.9 last year, accordi

Working-level talks expected to take place between the United States and North Korea late this month are part of a process to draft an agreement to be signed at the next summit of the two countries, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper in Japan said Thursday. Earlier this week, the North expressed a willingness to hold working-level talks with the U.S. in late September in what would mark a resumption of the negotiating process that reached a deadlock with February's no-deal summit between U.S. President D