18 August, 2017
South Korean President Moon Jae-in proposed a trilateral discussion with the USA during a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping last month in a bid to ease Beijing's resistance to the deployment of a U.S. missile shield here, Seoul officials said Wednesday.
The South Korean leader insisted the United States will also consult with Seoul on any military action it may take against North Korea outside the Korean Peninsula.
A military solution to the North Korean missile threat would be "horrific" but allowing Pyongyang to develop the capability to launch a nuclear attack on the United States is "unimaginable", the top USA military officer said Thursday in Beijing. China's foreign minister was quoted as saying the USA and North Korea should "hit the brakes" on their threatening words in the dispute.
North Korea's threats against Guam and its advancing missile capabilities, highlighted by a pair of intercontinental ballistic missile flight tests in July, have raised security jitters among many South Koreans who worry that a fully functional ICBM in Pyongyang would force the United States to rethink whether to trade NY or Washington for Seoul in the event of a war on the peninsula. "I do not necessarily believe that showed his determination to take military options", Moon said.
The South Korean leader also said North Korea's development of nuclear weapons technology was "nearing" a red line, which he described as "completing an ICBM and weaponizing it with a nuclear head".
"In the event of a missile strike to the territory of Japan, Guam, the United States, Korea, we would take immediate specific steps to cut down", he insisted.
The allies' Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) exercises will kick off Monday and run until August 31, which North Korea has long denounced as war rehearsals for a northern invasion.
"I say this with confidence that there will be no war on the Korean Peninsula ever".
Tensions have soared on the peninsula in recent months after Pyongyang carries out its first successful tests of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), bringing many USA cities within its range.
The intense rhetoric on both sides raised fears that a miscalculation could lead to catastrophic consequences - Pyongyang has vast artillery forces deployed within range of Seoul, where millions of people live.
Soon after coming to office he delayed the deployment of the US-developed THAAD anti-missile system.
The North has been subjected to seven sets of sanctions by the United Nations Security Council over its nuclear programme, the latest earlier this month, with China, its main ally and benefactor, promising to comply.
North Korea denounced the exercise Monday, warning that even an accident in the midst of it could trigger a nuclear conflict.
The north Korean leader Kim Jong-un has put on hold his project of shooting missiles on the u.s. territory of Guam, a decision deemed "wise" by the american president. North Korea simply lacks the capability to execute such a test in a way that doesn't open them up to worldwide embarrassments like having the missiles fail or be shot down by the US. Mr Moon wants to engage the North.
But the US and South Korea are set to begin their annual 10-day Ulchi Freedom Guardian joint exercises on Monday, involving tens of thousands of troops.