South Korea's Moon : No war on Korean Peninsula

There will be no war on the Korean peninsula, South Korean President Moon Jae-In said Thursday, saying Seoul effectively had a veto over United States military action in response to the North's nuclear and missile programmes. "I will stop a war at all costs", he said. Steve Bannon, the White House's chief strategist, told The American Prospect that there was no military solution to Pyongyang's nuclear threat.

But Moon said Seoul effectively had a veto on military action by the US.

Bannon may not have been speaking on behalf of the U.S. government in the interview, and Secretaries of Defence and State Jim Mattis and Rex Tillerson took a tougher line after talks with their Japanese counterparts. Asian stocks bounced back on Monday after three losing sessions, but gains were capped by worries about escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula that sent investors fleeing from riskier assets last week.

Guam officials are taking the latest missive from North Korea as a sign that the rhetoric is calming down.

Those who fear canceling drills could "invite further escalations" from Kim Jong Un's regime, and those who think "drills are an unnecessary provocation" and suspending them or calling them off would significantly lower tensions. Both the USA and North Korea have been engaged in a bitter war of words. Kim said North Korea would conduct the launches if the "Yankees persist in their extremely unsafe reckless actions on the Korean Peninsula and its vicinity", and that the United States should "think reasonably and judge properly" to avoid shaming itself, the news agency said.

North Korea said its last test of an intercontinental ballistic missile in late August was a "perfect and big success" with both re-entry and warhead control capabilities showing no fault.

Moon's comments follow a spike in animosity generated by North Korea's warning that it might send missiles into waters near the USA territory of Guam, and by Trump's warlike language.

Any conflict between the North and the United States could have devastating consequences for Asia's fourth-largest economy, with Seoul within range of Pyongyang's vast conventional artillery forces. The United States and South Korea remain technically still at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce, not a peace treaty.

Also within range are numerous 28,500 United States troops stationed in the South.

"We're all looking to get out of this situation without a war", Dunford said, even as he stressed Pyongyang possessing nuclear weapons that threaten the United States and its regional allies is "unacceptable".

It has long sought to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

"If North Korea provokes again, it will face with much harsher sanction and won't stand it in the end".

Beijing has grown increasingly exasperated with its wayward neighbour, but fears instability and the prospect of U.S. troops on its border in a united Korea.

"Under the right conditions, I will also go to Pyongyang".

But since coming to power his gestures have been rebuffed by Pyongyang, and he played down the urgency of dialogue.

Shogo Aoki, a Japanese researcher, said that by threatening North Korea recently, Trump was putting America's interests over those of North Korea's more vulnerable neighbors.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, meanwhile, a liberal who favors engagement with the North, urged North Korea to stop provocations and to commit to talks over its nuclear weapons program. -South Korean military exercises that enrage the North each year make it unclear, however, if diplomacy will prevail.

South Korean officials have been monitoring financial markets around the clock, said Kim.

Annual military drills involving tens of thousands of USA and South Korean troops are due to begin on Monday.

Pinkston said calls to reduce or suspend joint exercises are mistaken, and risk increasing rather than reducing the threat from North Korea.