17 August, 2017
"Military action on the Korean peninsula can only be decided by South Korea and no one else can decide to take military action without the consent of South Korea", said Moon in televised comments.
Moon's comments follow a spike in animosity generated by North Korea's warning that it might send missiles into waters near the US territory of Guam, and Trump's warlike language.
Moon in May won the country's presidential election on the platform of re-engaging with Pyongyang, which has conducted numerous missile tests this year and has repeatedly threatened its southern neighbor.
"Moon's speech speaks to his frustration, and his nation's wider frustration-and that is the perennial problem that they are not masters of their own destiny when it comes to North Korean geopolitics", said Euan Graham, a director at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, Australia.
It highlights an interesting feature of South Korea, a strong US ally, trading partner and fellow democracy where there can seem to be as much, maybe more, worry about Trump's unpredictable style of leadership as there is about archrival North Korea.
Only then could Seoul consider sending an envoy to the North, he added.
Dunford also told his South Korean counterparts Monday that the North's missiles and nukes threaten the world.
Many South Koreans ignore Pyongyang because they have lived with near-constant North Korean belligerence, and sometimes violence, since the Korean Peninsula was divided in 1945 and the two countries fought a bloody, three-year war five years later. This would be a deeply provocative act from the US perspective, and there has been widespread debate about whether Washington would try to shoot the missiles down if they're fired.
The US and North Korea must "hit the brakes" and find a peaceful resolution to their ongoing crisis, China's foreign minister said.
But Trump on Friday appeared to set another red line - the mere utterance of threats - that would trigger a United States attack against North Korea and "big, big trouble" for Kim.
The exercise itself has changed several times, and dates back to 1968, when South Korea and the United States created a war game called Focus Lens.
"The most important task at hand is for the USA and North Korea to "hit the brakes" on their mutual needling of each other with words and actions, to lower the temperature of the tense situation and prevent the emergence of an "August crisis", Wang was quoted as saying in the Tuesday conversation.
"The government, putting everything on the line, will block war by all means", Moon said.
US National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster recently declared the United Stated was prepared to wage a "preventive war" against North Korea if that was to be deemed necessary - although the current deployment of the US aircraft carriers does not seem to bode a military operation.
Trump has pushed China, North Korea's biggest economic partner and source of aid, to do more to stop the North's nuclear ambitions.
A Canadian pastor who was imprisoned for more than two years was released last week.
The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported early Tuesday that North Koran leader Kim Jong-un was briefed on his military's plan for "an enveloping fire at Guam" and "examined the plan for a long time".
In an interview, Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon said there's no military solution to the threat posed by North Korea and its nuclear ambitions.
"War must never break out again on the Korean Peninsula". He visited the Republic of Korea on Sunday and travels to Japan later this week.