That World's News: Asia Pacific

Turkey’s Erdogan to reveal ‘full details’ of Khashoggi’s death

Recep Tayyip Erdogan greets supporters at a ceremony in Istanbul on Sunday

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here.

https://www.ft.com/content/a52cc34e-d54d-11e8-a854-33d6f82e62f8

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan stepped up the pressure on Saudi Arabia over the death of Jamal Khashoggi on Sunday, casting doubts on Riyadh’s claims that the journalist died in a fist fight and saying he would reveal what happened in “full detail”. Saudi Arabia finally admitted at the weekend that Khashoggi was killed in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul this month after two weeks of denials. It said it had detained 18 unidentified Saudis over the incident. But Riyadh has changed its story several times and its claims that the 60-year-old columnist was killed in a fight have been widely condemned as lacking credibility. Turkish officials have previously said they believe Khashoggi was killed by a 15-man Saudi hit team that flew into Istanbul and later dismembered his body. Mr Erdogan, who has been restrained in his comments over the past two weeks, referred to that version of events in a speech yesterday. “Why did 15 people come here; why were 18 people detained?” All of this must be explained in full detail,” he said. “On Tuesday, these things will be explained in a very different way at the group meeting [of Turkey’s ruling party]. There I will go into these details.” A Turkish official told the Financial Times that Ankara had successfully “shamed” Riyadh into an admission of guilt. “Now we have to get the full story. We will refute the claim that a fist fight caused this mess.” If Mr Erdogan reveals the details of Khashoggi’s death on Tuesday, it would coincide with the opening of Saudi Arabia’s flagship investor conference in Riyadh. A growing list of western government ministers and executives have withdrawn from the gathering because of the crisis.

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here.
https://www.ft.com/content/a52cc34e-d54d-11e8-a854-33d6f82e62f8

Western leaders have also demanded that Riyadh provide more details on the death of Khashoggi, one of the Middle East’s most prominent journalists who was living in self-exile in the US. Riyadh, grappling with its biggest diplomatic crisis since the September 11 attacks on the US in 2001, has provided no evidence to back its claims and it is still not clear where Khashoggi’s body is. Faced with a growing backlash in the US, Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, appeared on Fox News to defend his government’s actions. He called Khashoggi’s murder an “aberration” and a “criminal act” that was the result of a “rogue operation” by individuals who exceeded their powers and then tried to cover it up. He said Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince, had no knowledge of the assassination, which was now being investigated. Asked if he knew the whereabouts of Khashoggi’s remains, he said: “We are working on this with our Turkish colleagues, the public prosecutor is continuing his line of questioning. We are intent on determining what happened, we are intent on uncovering all of the facts that exist in this case, we want to make sure we know what happened.” In a joint statement on Sunday, the foreign ministers of the UK, France and Germany “stressed that more efforts are needed and expected towards establishing the truth in a comprehensive, transparent and credible manner”. The statement added that “nothing can justify this killing and we condemn it in the strongest possible terms”. “We will ultimately make our judgment based on the credibility of the further explanation we receive about what happened and our confidence that such a shameful event cannot and will not ever be repeated,” the statement said. After initially hinting that he would accept Saudi Arabia’s claim, US President Donald Trump on Saturday said he was “not satisfied” with its explanation for the death of the journalist, who wrote a column for the Washington Post. “I am not satisfied until we find the answer,” Mr Trump told reporters, adding he was considering imposing sanctions on Riyadh, the main Arab ally of the US. Political pressure in the US is mounting on Mr Trump to take a tougher line, with lawmakers of both parties pinning the blame for Khashoggi’s murder on the highest echelons of the monarchy.

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here.
https://www.ft.com/content/a52cc34e-d54d-11e8-a854-33d6f82e62f8

“In Saudi Arabia, you do not do something of this magnitude without having clearance from the top. We need to find out who that is and hold him accountable,” Thom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina, said on NBC on Sunday. “If the facts lead to what we all suspect they will, I think it will be very problematic for our relationship, going forward.” Peter King, a senior Republican in the House of Representatives, added: “I would ask the president to try to thread the needle here . . . whether it involves imposing sanctions, whether it involves delaying arms sales, making a clear statement of condemnation at the end but still not hurt ourselves.” Dick Durbin, a Democratic senator from Illinois, said the crown prince had his “fingerprints all over this” and called on the Trump administration to expel the Saudi ambassador to the US until a “third-party investigation” on the murder was completed. “We should call on our allies to do the same. Unless the Saudi kingdom understands that civilised countries around the world are going to reject this conduct and make sure that they pay a price for it, they’ll continue doing it,” Mr Durbin said. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said the US should suspend military sales and “certain security assistance” to Saudi Arabia, as well as impose sanctions on the perpetrators of the murder. “This really ought to be something that causes us to do a re-examination of our relationship with Saudi Arabia,” Mr Schiff told ABC news. In a sign that Prince Mohammed will not bear any responsibility for the crisis, his father, King Salman, named the 33-year-old crown prince to head a committee to restructure the intelligence services within 30 days. Turkey and Saudi Arabia already have strained relations and vie for influence in the Middle East. Riyadh was annoyed by Ankara’s support for Qatar after Saudi Arabia and its allies imposed a regional embargo on the Gulf state. It also considers Turkey as sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement that the kingdom describes as a terrorist group.

North Korea accuses CIA of 'bio-chemical' plot against leadership

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves to people attending a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of country's founding father, Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, April 15, 2017. Image source : REUTERS

North Korea on Friday accused the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and South Korea's intelligence service of a plot to attack its "supreme leadership" with a bio-chemical weapon and said such a "pipe-dream" could never succeed.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks, driven by concern that North Korea might conduct its sixth nuclear test or test-launch another ballistic missile in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Reclusive North Korea warned this week that U.S. hostility had brought the region to the brink of nuclear war.

The North's Ministry of State Security released a statement saying "the last-ditch effort" of U.S. "imperialists" and the South had gone "beyond the limits".

"The Central Intelligence Agency of the U.S. and the Intelligence Service (IS) of south Korea, hotbed of evils in the world, hatched a vicious plot to hurt the supreme leadership of the DPRK and those acts have been put into the extremely serious phase of implementation after crossing the threshold of the DPRK," the North's KCNA news agency quoted the statement as saying, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"A hideous terrorists' group, which the CIA and the IS infiltrated into the DPRK on the basis of covert and meticulous preparations to commit state-sponsored terrorism against the supreme leadership of the DPRK by use of bio-chemical substance, has been recently detected."

The U.S. Embassy in Seoul and South Korea's National Intelligence Service were not immediately available for comment. The U.S. military has said CIA director Mike Pompeo visited South Korea this week and met the NIS chief for discussions.

KCNA said the two intelligence services "ideologically corrupted" and bribed a North Korean surnamed Kim and turned him into "a terrorist full of repugnance and revenge against the supreme leadership of the DPRK".

"They hatched a plot of letting human scum Kim commit bomb terrorism targeting the supreme leadership during events at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun and at military parade and public procession after his return home," KCNA said.

"They told him that assassination by use of biochemical substances including radioactive substance and nano poisonous substance is the best method that does not require access to the target, their lethal results will appear after six or twelve months...

"Then they handed him over $20,000 on two occasions and a satellite transmitter-receiver and let him get versed in it."

North Korea conducted an annual military parade, featuring a display of missiles and overseen by top leader Kim Jong Un and his right-hand men on April 15 and then a large, live-fire artillery drill 10 days later.

KCNA, which often carries shrill, bellicose threats against the United States, gave lengthy details about the alleged plot but said it could never be accomplished.

"Criminals going hell-bent to realize such a pipe dream cannot survive on this land even a moment," it said.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday that Washington was working on more sanctions against North Korea if it takes steps that merit a new response. He also warned other countries their firms could face so-called secondary sanctions for doing illicit business with Pyongyang.

Tillerson said the Trump administration had been "leaning hard into China ... to test their willingness to use their influence, their engagement with the regime".

Two women accused of killing the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim with a chemical weapon appeared in court in Malaysia last month.

They allegedly smeared the man's face with the toxic VX nerve agent, a chemical described by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction, at Kuala Lumpur airport on Feb. 13.

Trump Follows Instincts, Not Establishment, With Overtures to Kim and Duterte

A military parade last month in Pyongyang, North Korea. President Trump said Monday that he would meet with North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, if the circumstances were right.

President Trump‘s willingness to meet with the North Korean and Philippine leaders illustrated his confidence in his own deal making but alarmed critics.

WASHINGTON — President Trump continued his outreach to rogue leaders on Monday, declaring he would meet North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, provided the circumstances were right, even as the Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, brushed aside the president’s invitation to visit the White House, saying he might be “too busy.”

Mr. Trump’s unorthodox overtures — to a nuclear-armed despot who brutally purged his rivals, and an insurgent politician accused of extrajudicial killings of drug suspects — illustrated the president’s confidence in his ability to make deals and his willingness to talk to virtually anyone.

Above all, they highlighted his penchant for flouting the norms of diplomacy, no matter his larger aim.

No sitting American president has met with a North Korean leader since Mr. Kim’s grandfather Kim Il-sung established a Stalinist state there after the Korean War. However vague and impromptu, Mr. Trump’s offer shook up an unsettled situation on the Korean Peninsula, which has been alarmed by the prospect of a military clash between the United States and the North.

“Kim Jong-un would be delighted to meet with President Trump on the basis of one nuclear leader to another,” said Christopher R. Hill, a career diplomat who was special envoy on North Korea under President George W. Bush. “If I were Trump I would pass on that.”

Mr. Duterte’s backhanded response to Mr. Trump, however, also showed the pitfalls of his personal brand of diplomacy. The president had already gotten fierce criticism from human rights groups for embracing a man viewed by many as being responsible for the deaths of thousands of people involved in the drug trade. Now he faces being snubbed by Mr. Duterte as well.

And he is working to keep open lines of communication with President Vladimir V. Putin, despite partially blaming the Russian leader last month for the continuing civil war in Syria. Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin are scheduled to speak by telephone on Tuesday afternoon, the White House announced late Monday.

“The most serious risk with this series of uncoordinated and controversial statements is that they undermine the most important currency of U.S. power: the credibility of the president’s words,” said Evan S. Medeiros, who served as a senior Asia adviser to President Barack Obama.

Mr. Trump first broached the idea of sitting down with Mr. Kim during the 2016 presidential campaign. He revived it in an interview Monday with Bloomberg News, saying, “If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely; I would be honored to do it.”

The White House clarified that Mr. Trump would only consider a meeting if the North Korean leader met a series of conditions, starting with a sharp curtailment of his provocative behavior. North Korea carried out its most recent ballistic missile test, which failed, only last week.

“We want to hold out the possibility that if North Korea were ever serious about completely dismantling its nuclear capability and taking away the threat that they pose both to the region and to us,” the press secretary, Sean Spicer, said, “there is always going to be a possibility of that occurring.” But he added, “That possibility is not there at this time.”

For now, the Trump administration is pursuing a more traditional strategy of tightening economic pressure on the North — mainly through its neighbor, China — and backing that up with threat of military action. Mr. Trump said last week that while he wanted to solve the crisis with North Korea through diplomacy, a “major, major conflict” was possible.

Some experts said Mr. Trump’s openness to diplomacy reflected the influence of China, which has long urged the United States to speak directly to North Korea. Since Mr. Trump met last month in Florida with President Xi Jinping of China, he has praised Mr. Xi for what he insisted was China’s willingness to use its leverage over the North to curb its behavior.

“The Chinese have told Trump, ‘You’ve got to talk to these people,’” said Joel S. Wit, an expert on North Korea at Johns Hopkins University, who was involved in diplomacy during the Clinton administration that led to a nuclear agreement with North Korea in 1994.

“They’re trying to create the right circumstances for talks,” Mr. Wit said, “ramping up the pressure on the Chinese, ramping up the pressure on the North Koreans, and then opening up an escape route.”

But the timing of Mr. Trump’s overture, analysts and diplomats said, was hopelessly premature. In these types of negotiations, American presidents typically function as closers — taking over the process, after all the spadework has been done, to bridge the last gaps. So far, Mr. Kim has displayed no interest in even beginning such a negotiation.

Mr. Trump has spoken generously of Mr. Kim in recent days, noting that he survived the treacherous political circles in Pyongyang after he first assumed power as a young man. Mr. Trump suggested that Mr. Kim repelled an effort by an uncle to take power back from him. In 2013, Mr. Kim purged his powerful uncle, Jang Song-taek, who was later executed.

Human rights groups also suspect Mr. Kim was behind the assassination of his exiled half brother, Kim Jong-nam, who was accosted in an airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by two assailants wielding a liquid containing the nerve agent VX.

Beyond the palace intrigue, the Kim family has presided over one of the world’s most repressive regimes, leaving the country in tatters and its people in misery.

Asked to explain why Mr. Trump would consider it an honor to meet such a leader, Mr. Spicer said, “I guess because he’s still a head of state.” He noted that there were “a lot of potential threats that could have come his way, and he’s obviously managed to lead a country forward.” Mr. Spicer added, “He is a young person to be leading a country with nuclear weapons.”

For his part, Mr. Duterte appeared unimpressed by Mr. Trump’s invitation to the White House, which the president made during a phone call on Saturday, to the surprise of his own staff. The Philippine leader said he and Mr. Trump had an amicable conversation, but he was noncommittal about visiting Washington, saying he had a busy schedule.

“I cannot make any definite promise,” Mr. Duterte said to reporters after touring Chinese warships in Davao City, his hometown. “I’m supposed to go to Russia, I’m also supposed to go to Israel.”

If Mr. Duterte rejected Mr. Trump’s invitation, he would spare him further criticism for playing host to a leader with a toxic reputation. On Sunday, senior officials said they expected the State Department and the National Security Council to resist a White House visit. But on Monday, an official said the White House did not pass word to Mr. Duterte to demur.

Mr. Spicer defended the invitation, saying the Philippines were important to isolating North Korea diplomatically and economically. Mr. Trump, he said, had been briefed about Mr. Duterte’s record before he made the call.

Josh Kurlantzick, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, said he expected Mr. Duterte would still come to the United States, but might not want to seem too eager to do so. The Philippine leader has made a show of his independence from the United States, a treaty ally.

“Even though he welcomes a better relationship with this U.S. president, he wants to be cautious that he does not appear to be embracing the U.S. too much,” Mr. Kurlantzick said, “given that he has devoted a fair amount of diplomatic resources to courting China.”

Donald Trump’s warning of major conflict, as North Korea turns to Southeast Asian nations for support

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

US President Donald Trump said a major conflict with North Korea is possible in the standoff over its nuclear and missile programs, but he would prefer a diplomatic outcome to the dispute.

“There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea. Absolutely,” Trump told Reuters in an Oval Office interview ahead of his 100th day in office.

Nonetheless, Trump said he wanted to peacefully resolve a crisis that has bedeviled multiple US presidents, a path that he and his administration are emphasizing by preparing a variety of new economic sanctions while not taking the military option off the table.

“We’d love to solve things diplomatically but it’s very difficult,” he said.

Trump lavished praise on Chinese President Xi Jinping for Chinese assistance in trying to rein in North Korea. The two leaders met in Florida earlier this month.

“I believe he is trying very hard. He certainly doesn’t want to see turmoil and death. He doesn’t want to see it. He is a good man. He is a very good man and I got to know him very well.

“With that being said, he loves China and he loves the people of China. I know he would like to be able to do something, perhaps it’s possible that he can’t,” Trump said.

President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House.

Trump spoke just a day after he and his top national security advisers briefed US lawmakers on the North Korean threat and one day before Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will press the United Nations Security Council on sanctions to further isolate Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs.

The Trump administration on Wednesday declared North Korea “an urgent national security threat and top foreign policy priority.” It said it was focusing on economic and diplomatic pressure, including Chinese cooperation in containing its defiant neighbor and ally, and remained open to negotiations.

A submarine-launched ballistic missile is displayed in Kim Il-sung Square during a military parade in Pyongyang, North Korea.

US officials said military strikes remained an option but played down the prospect, though the administration has sent an aircraft carrier and a nuclear-powered submarine to the region in a show of force.

Any direct US military action would run the risk of massive North Korean retaliation and huge casualties in Japan and South Korea and among U.S. forces in both countries.

Trump, asked if he considered North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to be rational, said he was operating from the assumption that he is rational. He noted that Kim had taken over his country at an early age.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves during a military parade in Pyongyang.

“He’s 27 years old. His father dies, took over a regime. So say what you want but that is not easy, especially at that age.

“I’m not giving him credit or not giving him credit, I’m just saying that’s a very hard thing to do. As to whether or not he’s rational, I have no opinion on it. I hope he’s rational,” he said.

Trump, sipping a Coke delivered by an aide after the president ordered it by pressing a button on his desk, appeared to rebuff an overture from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who told Reuters a direct phone call with Trump could take place again after their first conversation in early December angered Beijing.

China considers neighboring Taiwan to be a renegade province.

“My problem is that I have established a very good personal relationship with President Xi,” said Trump. “I really feel that he is doing everything in his power to help us with a big situation. So I wouldn’t want to be causing difficulty right now for him.”

“So I would certainly want to speak to him first.”

S KOREA TO PAY FOR MISSILE SYSTEM

President Trump told Reuters he will either renegotiate or terminate what he called a “horrible” free trade deal with South Korea and said Seoul should pay for a US anti-missile system that he priced at $1 billion.

In an interview with Reuters, Trump called the five-year-old trade pact with South Korea “unacceptable” and said it would be targeted for renegotiation after his administration completes a revamp of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico.

He blamed the US-Korean trade deal, known as KORUS, on his 2016 Democratic presidential election opponent, Hillary Clinton, who as secretary of state promoted the final version of the trade pact before its approval by Congress in 2011.

“It is unacceptable, it is a horrible deal made by Hillary,” the Republican Trump said. “It’s a horrible deal, and we are going to renegotiate that deal or terminate it.”

US Army soldiers install their missile defense system called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, at a golf course in Seongju, South Korea.

KORUS was initially negotiated by the Republican administration of President George W. Bush in 2007, but that version was scrapped and renegotiated by President Barack Obama’s Democratic administration three years later.

The U.S. goods trade deficit with South Korea has more than doubled since KORUS took effect in March 2012, from $13.2 billion in 2011 to $27.7 billion in 2016, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Trump said the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system now being deployed in South Korea to defend against a potential missile attack from North Korea would cost about $1 billion and questioned why the United States was paying for it.

“I informed South Korea it would be appropriate if they paid. It’s a billion dollar system,” Trump said. “It’s phenomenal, shoots missiles right out of the sky.”

US Forces in Korea as they continue progress in fulfilling the South Korea-US alliance decision to install a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, on the Korean Peninsula.

N KOREA APPEALS FOR SUPPORT

NORTH Korea has appealed to Southeast Asian countries for support in its row with the United States to prevent what it warned could be a “nuclear holocaust”.

In a letter to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ secretary-general, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho warned the situation on the Korean Peninsula was “reaching the brink of war” because of Washington’s actions.

He urged the ASEAN chief to inform the 10-nation organisation’s foreign ministers “about the grave situation” on the peninsula “and give them a proper proposal”, while criticising at length US-South Korean military exercises.

Tensions have soared in the region in recent weeks in the wake of a series of North Korean missile tests and tough rhetoric from Washington on the isolated nation’s rogue weapons program.

Commandoes march across the Kim Il Sung Square during a military parade in Pyongyang.

A copy of the North’s letter, dated March 23, was obtained by AFP on Thursday ahead of an ASEAN leaders’ summit in Manila where they are expected to discuss the situation on the peninsula.

“I express my expectations that ASEAN which attaches great importance to the regional peace and stability will make an issue of the US-South Korean joint military exercises at ASEAN conferences from the fair position and play an active role in safeguarding the peace and safety of Korean Peninsula,” the letter said.

North Korea is known to have close ties with some ASEAN members, including Cambodia and Laos.

THREAT TAKEN SERIOUSLY: TURNBULL

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has responded to Pyongyang’s latest threats, saying the Australian government is taking the possibility of a nuclear attack very seriously.

“There is the possibility and the risk that North Korea could launch an attack on its neighbours,” Mr Turnbull told 3AW host Neil Mitchell this morning.

“That is the reason why there is so much effort being put into seeking to stop this reckless and dangerous conduct by the North Korean regime,” he said.

Kim Jong-Un attending the combined fire demonstration of the services of the Korean People's Army.

“They are a real threat to the peace and stability in the region and the whole world.”

When pushed on the possibility that the world was headed for nuclear war, Mr Turnbull said how other countries responded if North Korea carried out a nuclear attack would “depend on events”.

“At this stage, obviously, they’ve not carried out those threats,” he said.

“Their threats can appear to be theatrical and over the top and the subject of satire but I can assure you my government takes the threat of North Korea very, very seriously.”

The Prime Minister said “extensive sanctions” and pressure on China to intervene were Australia’s primary response to the growing threat that North Korea could develop a long-range ballistic missile capable of reaching our shores within two years.

U.S. Navy, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70), foreground, transits the Philippine Sea, ready to act.

But he did not rule out upgrading the nation’s missile defence systems if the threat evolved.

“As threats evolve our response to them would evolve,” Mr Turnbull said.

“But right at the moment we do not deploy a THAAD - this is the anti-missile system that is being deployed in South Korea - we do not deploy that in Australia.

“Nor do we see the need to do so.

“What we are doing in term of stopping North Korea is continuing our pressure on the regime through extensive sanctions, economic sanctions, which are designed to bring North Korea to its senses and urging North Korea’s neighbours to bring its considerable leverage to bear on North Korea to change its ways.

“It has not been enough to date because ... the reckless threats and conduct by the North Korean regime has continued.”

Mr Turnbull said he was still “quietly confident” the Chinese would act to rein in North Korea.

In what military experts say appears to be a North Korean KN-08 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICMB) is paraded across Kim Il Sung Square.

ASEAN has in the past spoken out against North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

A statement released at the end of an ASEAN leaders’ summit in Laos last year expressed “serious concern” over North Korea’s nuclear testing and called on it to abide by relevant UN Security Council resolutions meant to curtail its atomic program.

Ri’s letter appeared to be a highly unusual move. A Southeast Asian diplomat said that, as far as he could recall, it was the first time North Korea had written a letter seeking ASEAN’s help on the issue.

Kim Jong-nam was assassinated at an airport in Malaysia.

It comes after Pyongyang’s diplomatic ties with ASEAN member Malaysia were seriously damaged with the assassination in Kuala Lumpur in February of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

South Korea has blamed Pyongyang for the killing, accusing its agents of using a banned nerve agent.

Ri wrote in the letter that the annual US-South Korea military exercises justified Pyongyang’s decision to develop its own nuclear weapons.

“It is a fact clear to everyone that when they deploy the means of nuclear strike that can drive the Korean Peninsula into a nuclear holocaust in just seconds ... the nature of such exercises can in no way be defensive,” the letter said.

Washington has deployed an aircraft carrier strike group to the Korean peninsula amid signs the North could be preparing for a sixth nuclear test.

Washington has deployed an aircraft carrier strike group to the Korean peninsula amid signs the North could be preparing for a sixth nuclear test.

Trump Warns That ‘Major, Major Conflict’ With North Korea Is Possible

President Trump during an interview with Reuters in the Oval Office on Thursday. “There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea” if diplomatic efforts fail to resolve a dispute over that country’s weapons programs, Mr. Trump said.

He praised the Chinese president for efforts to resolve the dispute with the North but cautioned that such diplomatic efforts might fail.

HONG KONG — President Trump warned Thursday of the possibility of a “major, major conflict” with North Korea, in an interview in which he said he was seeking a diplomatic solution to concerns that Pyongyang was preparing to conduct another nuclear test.

In the interview with Reuters, Mr. Trump praised President Xi Jinping of China for his efforts to resolve the dispute over North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons programs, but he cautioned that diplomatic efforts might fail.

“There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea,” he said. “Absolutely.”

Mr. Trump’s remarks came amid signs that North Korea might soon conduct another underground detonation at its Punggye-ri nuclear test site despite Mr. Trump’s warning not to do so. China has played a mediating role in the crisis, as Mr. Trump has urged Mr. Xi to use Beijing’s leverage with North Korea, a longtime ally, to persuade it not to conduct a test.

“I believe he is trying very hard. He certainly doesn’t want to see turmoil and death. He doesn’t want to see it,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Xi. “He is a good man. He is a very good man, and I got to know him very well.”

In the interview, Mr. Trump actually offered some grudging praise for North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un.

“He’s 27 years old. His father dies, took over a regime,” he said. “So say what you want, but that is not easy, especially at that age.”

“I hope he’s rational,” Mr. Trump added of Mr. Kim.

The United States has been pressing the United Nations to impose more sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs. The diplomatic efforts have coincided with military maneuvers by the United States and South Korea in Pocheon, northeast of Seoul, South Korea, where the allies have demonstrated some of their latest weapons. In addition, the Michigan, a submarine armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, has arrived in the South Korean port city of Busan. And a Navy strike group led by the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson has been sent to the Sea of Japan, which borders the Korean Peninsula.

Earlier this month, as tensions with North Korea were flaring, the Carl Vinson was said to be sailing north, toward the peninsula, when it was actually heading south, toward the Indian Ocean.

To protect against a North Korean attack, the United States is on the verge of making a new antimissile system operational in South Korea. Mr. Trump said in the interview that he would seek to have South Korea pay for the system, known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or Thaad, putting its cost around $1 billion.

Under its arrangement with Washington, South Korea was to provide land and build a base for the Thaad system, while the United States would pay for it and cover its operational costs.

In South Korea, Mr. Trump’s comment shook the election campaign to choose a successor next month to Park Geun-hye, the ousted president. Ms. Park’s decision to accept the Thaad deployment has been one of the most contentious issues on the trail, and Moon Jae-in, the leading candidate, seized on the remarks and, through a spokesman, called for a halt to the deployment.

“We must consider whether it conforms to the spirit of the alliance,” the spokesman, Youn Kwan-suk, said on Friday, accusing Mr. Trump of “demanding unilaterally and without close bilateral consultations that South Korea pay the cost” of the missile defense system.

Rebuffing Mr. Trump, the South Korean Defense Ministry said on Friday that it had no plans to pay for operating the system.

Mr. Trump also said that because of the United States’ sizable trade deficit with South Korea, he intended to renegotiate or end a trade pact with the country. That free trade agreement, called Korus, went into effect in 2012. It contains a framework for trade in both goods and services, and it covers environmental issues as well.

Like all free trade deals, it is designed to remove barriers to commerce. South Korea is America’s sixth-largest trading partner in goods, with $112.2 billion worth of commerce between the two in 2016, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative. South Korea has a $10.7 billion trade deficit in services with the United States, but a $27.7 billion trade surplus in goods.

In the Reuters interview, Mr. Trump also rejected an overture from Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, for further discussions. His telephone call with her in December alarmed China, which considers Taiwan a renegade province.

“My problem is that I have established a very good personal relationship with President Xi,” Mr. Trump said. “I really feel that he is doing everything in his power to help us with a big situation. So I wouldn’t want to be causing difficulty right now for him.”

On Thursday, Ms. Tsai had raised the possibility of talking with Mr. Trump again. “We have the opportunity to communicate more directly with the U.S. government,” she said in an interview. “We don’t exclude the opportunity to call President Trump himself, but it depends on the needs of the situation and the U.S. government’s consideration of regional affairs.”

Mr. Trump also used the Reuters interview to reflect on his three-month-old presidency, saying, “This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier.”

China launches first aircraft carrier built entirely on its own amid tension over man-made islands

This aircraft carrier is the first China has built entirely on its own.

CHINA launched its first aircraft carrier built entirely on its own on Wednesday, in a demonstration of the growing technical sophistication of its defence industries and determination to safeguard its maritime territorial claims and crucial trade routes.

The 50,000-ton carrier left its berth just after 9am in the northern port city of Dalian, where its predecessor, the Ukrainian-built Liaoning, also underwent extensive refurbishing before being commissioned in 2012, the Ministry of National Defense said.

The newly-built aircraft carrier is transferred from dry dock into the water at a launch ceremony at a shipyard in Dalian in northeastern China's Liaoning Province.

The new carrier is expected to be formally commissioned sometime before 2020 following the completion of sea trials and the arrival of its full air complement.

Like the 60,000-ton Liaoning, the new carrier is based on the former Soviet Union’s Kuznetsov class design, with a ski jump-style deck for taking off and a conventional oil-fuelled steam turbine power plant.

That limits the weight of payloads its planes can carry, its speed and the amount of time it can spend at sea relative to American nuclear-powered carriers.

China is believed to be planning to build at least two and possibly as many as four additional carriers, with one of them, the Type 002, reported to be already under construction at a shipyard outside Shanghai.

They are expected to be closer in size to the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered 100,000-ton Nimitz class ships, with flat flight decks and catapults to allow planes to launch with more bombs and fuel aboard.

According to Chinese reports, the new carrier will carry 24 Shenyang J-15 fighters, based on the Russian Sukhoi Su-33, along with 12 helicopters for anti-submarine warfare, airborne early warning and rescue operations. That compares to 85-90 fixed wing aircraft and helicopters carried by a Nimitz-class carrier.

The new carrier is part of an ambitious expansion of the Chinese navy, which is projected to have a total of 265-273 warships, submarines and logistics vessels by 2020, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Naval Analysis.

That compares with 275 deployable battle force ships presently in the U.S. Navy, China’s primary rival in the Asia Pacific.

US aircraft carriers such as USS Carl Vinson are superior to China’s homegrown versions.

The U.S. operates 10 aircraft carriers, has 62 destroyers to China’s 32, and 75 submarines to China’s 68. The U.S. Navy has 323,000 personnel to China’s 235,000.

China’s navy has made strides in spreading its global reach since it established a permanent overseas presence by joining in multinational anti-piracy patrols off Somalia in 2008.

It has cruised in the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf and helped evacuate Chinese and foreign nationals amid civil strife in Libya in 2011 and Yemen in 2015, the year it took part in its first Mediterranean joint naval exercises with Russia.

China has offered little information about the roles it expects its carriers to play, although its planning appears to be evolving as it gains more experience.

US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi met in Florida earlier this month.

The Liaoning was initially touted mainly as an experimental and training platform, but in December was declared to be combat-ready and has taken part in live-firing exercises in the South China Sea, where tensions have risen over China’s construction of man-made islands complete with airstrips and military structures.

Building on that experience, the new carrier can be expected to take on an even more active role, cruising in the South China Sea, the East China Sea and possibly into the Western Pacific beyond the “first island chain” that blocks its access to open seas.

Meanwhile, China’s naval expansion is also fuelling a reported push for a fivefold expansion of the marine corps to as many as 100,000 troops.

North Korea Stages Long-Range Artillery Drills

The U.S.S. Michigan, a submarine, at a naval base in Busan, a port city in South Korea, on Tuesday. Its presence reflected heightened military readiness on both sides of the Korean Peninsula.

HONG KONG — North Korea staged huge artillery drills on Tuesday to mark the 85th anniversary of the founding of the nation’s military, as China pressed its efforts to tamp down tensions over signs that Pyongyang was preparing for a nuclear test.

The long-range artillery drills were conducted near Wonsan, along North Korea’s east coast, according to the South Korean military. They coincided with military maneuvers by the United States and its allies as well as the arrival of the U.S.S. Michigan, a submarine armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, in the port city of Busan in South Korea.

The United States Navy described the arrival of the submarine as “routine,” but its presence reflected the heightened military readiness on both sides of the Korean Peninsula.

In addition to holding joint naval exercises in the Yellow Sea, the United States and South Korea have been staging military maneuvers in Pocheon, northeast of Seoul, demonstrating some of their latest weapons. A North Korean state newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said last week that the joint maneuvers were taking the tense situation on the peninsula to the “verge of explosion.”

North Korea often uses important national holidays, like the anniversary on Tuesday, to display its military might. On April 15 — the 105th birthday of Kim Il-sung, the country’s founder — the North staged a large military parade, flaunting what analysts said could be new intercontinental ballistic missiles. The next morning, it launched a ballistic missile that failed after liftoff.

The lack of a nuclear or long-range missile test as of Tuesday afternoon led to speculation that Kim Jong-un, the leader of the country, had instead decided to celebrate the anniversary with a large demonstration of conventional weapons.

“We are closely watching the North Korean military’s movements around Wonsan while maintaining a firm preparedness,” the South Korean military said in a statement.

Soldiers in front of statues of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, the former leaders of North Korea, in Pyongyang, the capital.

The South Korean news agency Yonhap, citing an unidentified government source, said the exercise involved 300 to 400 pieces of long-range artillery, of the same type deployed along the border north of Seoul. Seoul, a city of 10 million, lies in range of the North Korean artillery and could experience catastrophic damage should war break out.

Yonhap called the drill one of the largest live-fire exercises conducted by the North.

South Korea said on Monday that it had developed radar that can detect incoming artillery faster and more accurately than the radar it currently uses. The Defense Acquisition Program Administration said the technology, to be deployed by 2018, would not enable the South to intercept the rockets but would allow the military to identify their source more efficiently and strike the launchpads.

On Tuesday, China dispatched Wu Dawei, a longtime diplomat handling tensions on the Korean Peninsula, to Tokyo for talks with Japanese Foreign Ministry officials, in hopes of warding off military confrontation.

China, an ally of North Korea that has become increasingly impatient with its behavior, has tried to play a mediating role; its president, Xi Jinping, speaking by phone with President Trump on Monday, has cautioned restraint. The question is whether Beijing has enough leverage to avert a detonation at the North’s atomic test site in Punggye-ri, where, analysts say, preparations for a blast appear to have recently resumed.

As Mr. Wu traveled to Japan, the Chinese state news media defended how Beijing had handled the latest tensions. The Global Times, a widely read tabloid, praised Chinese coordination with the Trump administration, but said the key to defusing the tensions was in the hands of the United States, not China.

“China’s influence over the entire situation is very limited,” an editorial in the paper said on Tuesday. “The United States hopes that China can be like a magician managing Pyongyang’s nuclear activities, while Pyongyang hopes that Beijing will apply its pressure against the threat of war from the United States and South Korea. In the end, China can’t make either side entirely happy.”

Some South Korean news outlets raised concerns Tuesday about the decision by President Trump to speak with Mr. Xi and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan on Monday but not with the acting president of South Korea, Hwang Kyo-ahn. They characterized the omission as diplomatic fallout from the impeachment and ouster of former President Park Geun-hye, which has left the country without an elected leader until voters choose a successor next month.

In a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Mr. Ahn stressed that South Korea was not being left out. As acting president, he said, he had spoken with Mr. Trump on the phone three times, as well as met with Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis during their recent visits to Seoul.

On Wednesday, Mr. Tillerson and Mr. Mattis are scheduled to brief the entire United States Senate at the White House on North Korea. The briefing will also include Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, and Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary.

Criticism of Beijing’s North Korea Policy Comes From Unlikely Place: China

A military parade on Saturday honoring the birthday of the founder of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, in Pyongyang, the capital. A debate has emerged in China over whether the government should abandon its longstanding patronage of the North.

BEIJING — When China’s best-known historian of the Korean War, Shen Zhihua, recently laid out his views on North Korea, astonishment rippled through the audience. China, he said with a bluntness that is rare here, had fundamentally botched its policy on the divided Korean Peninsula.

China’s bond with North Korea’s Communist leaders formed even before Mao Zedong’s decision in 1950 to send People’s Liberation Army soldiers to fight alongside them in the Korean War. Mao famously said the two sides were “as close as lips and teeth.”

But China should abandon the stale myths of fraternity that have propped up its support for North Korea and turn to South Korea, Mr. Shen said at a university lecture last month in Dalian, a northeastern Chinese port city.

“Judging by the current situation, North Korea is China’s latent enemy and South Korea could be China’s friend,” Mr. Shen said, according to a transcript he published online. “We must see clearly that China and North Korea are no longer brothers in arms, and in the short term there’s no possibility of an improvement in Chinese-North Korean relations.”

The speech was a strikingly bold public challenge to Chinese policy, which remains unwilling to risk a break with North Korea even as its nuclear program raises tensions in northeast Asia and beyond. The controversy over Mr. Shen’s views in China has distilled a renewed debate about whether the government should abandon its longstanding patronage of North Korea.

China’s “traditionalist view that views the U.S. as a much greater threat than North Korea is deeply entrenched,” Bonnie S. Glaser, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said in an email. “But the proponents of change are vocal, too. They argue that North Korea is a growing liability.”

For decades, China has tried to preserve ties with North Korea as a partner and strategic shield in northeast Asia, even when the North’s leaders became testy and unpredictable. In recent years, though, China has also tried to soothe the United States, build political and business ties with South Korea and help rein in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

President Trump with President Xi Jinping of China at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., this month. The Trump administration has urged Mr. Xi to exert greater pressure on North Korea.

But as North Korea has improved its missiles and nuclear warheads, opening the possibility that it could one day strike the continental United States, China’s go-between approach has become increasingly fraught.

North Korea did not hold a nuclear test over the weekend that some had expected, and its missile test on Sunday fizzled. But more tests and launches appear to be only a matter of time, and the Trump administration has pressed China’s president, Xi Jinping, to use much tougher pressure on its neighbor.

“The era of strategic patience is over,” Vice President Mike Pence said in South Korea on Monday.

“The president and I have a great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea,” he told reporters, but “if China is unable to deal with North Korea, the United States and our allies will.”

China suspended coal imports from North Korea in February, cutting off a major source of revenue for the North. But China has resisted choking off trade with North Korea, and debate over how to balance Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington has sharpened and become more fractious. Trying to stay friends with all sides is proving perilous.

The Chinese government has fiercely objected to an American antimissile defense system, called the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad, being installed in South Korea, fearing it could be used to spy on China. But some Chinese experts have criticized the surge of anti-South Korean anger unleashed by Beijing as counterproductive.

Global Times, a state-run newspaper that often defends Chinese government policy, cautioned last week that North Korea would face harsher sanctions if it went ahead with another nuclear test. On Monday, the paper redoubled that warning, calling for China to choke off most oil supplies to North Korea if there was another test.

Mr. Shen has gone much further than other scholars in calling for a reset.

“The fundamental interests of China and North Korea are at odds,” he said in his lecture. “China’s fundamental interest lies in achieving a stability on its borders and developing outward. But since North Korea acquired nuclear weapons, that periphery has never been stable, so inevitably Chinese and North Korean interests are at odds.”

American soldiers during a drill in South Korea in March. China has balanced its criticisms of North Korea by pushing the United States to agree to negotiations with the North and suspend military exercises with the South.

He derided China’s opposition to the Thaad antimissile system as shrill and self-defeating, needlessly alienating South Korean opinion. “What we’ve done is exactly what the Americans and North Koreans would like to see,” he said.

Mr. Shen’s views have incensed Chinese ultranationalists, who have accused him of selling out the country’s ally in Pyongyang. His views and the debate about them have not been reported in Chinese state news media.

But Mr. Shen’s speech remains on the website of the Cold War history research center at East China Normal University in Shanghai, where he works. He has also restated his views at lectures in Shanghai and, last week, in Xi’an in northwest China, he said.

In the past, articles in China critical of North Korea have been quickly censored. In 2004, an influential Chinese policy magazine was closed down after it published an essay critical of North Korea. In 2013, an editor at a Communist Party journal in Beijing was shunted from his job for publicly proposing that China withdraw support for North Korea.

Mr. Shen said the tolerance — so far — for his views suggested that the government might be willing to tolerate greater criticism of North Korea and debate about the relationship.

“Many people have asked me, ‘Teacher Shen, why hasn’t your speech been taken down?’” Mr. Shen said in a telephone interview from Shanghai.

“At least it shows that there can be different views about the North Korea issue. It’s up to the center to set policy, but at least you can air different views in public, whereas before you couldn’t,” he said. The “center” refers to China’s central leadership.

Still, Ms. Glaser said, President Xi appears unlikely to turn entirely on North Korea.

After a meeting with Mr. Xi, President Trump said his Chinese counterpart seemed willing to press Pyongyang. But China has balanced its criticisms of North Korea by pressing the United States to agree to prompt negotiations with the North and suspend major military exercises with the South.

A North Korean soldier at an outpost near the border with China. Beijing’s bond with Pyongyang dates back to even before the Korean War in the 1950s.

In South Korea on Monday, Vice President Pence held out the possibility of opening talks with the North Koreans, noting that Washington was seeking security “through peaceable means, through negotiations.”

His office added that any talks would include Japan, South Korea, other allies in the region and China.

Mr. Shen, 66, is well known in China and is often cited for his groundbreaking studies on the outbreak of the Korean War that used archival records to expose the tensions and miscalculations behind Mao’s decision to send troops.

He is the son of Communist Party officials and previously used his earnings from business to pay for dredging archives in Russia, after serving a two-year prison term on a charge of leaking state secrets that he insisted was groundless.

He said he hoped that his research, including a new history of Chinese-North Korean relations that he hopes will appear in English this year, would dismantle deceptive myths that have grown up in China around that past.

“It’s very hard for China to adjust relations,” he said. “If everyone understands the truth and this myth is burst, then there’ll be a basis among the public and officials for adjusting policy.”

But Mr. Shen acknowledged that shifting direction on North Korea would carry risks. If political cooperation between Beijing and Washington fails to constrain North Korea, he said, the two governments should cooperate in a military response.

“If North Korea really does master nuclear weapons and their delivery, then the whole world will have to prostrate itself at the feet of North Korea,” he said in the interview. “The longer this drags out, the better it is for North Korea.”

That World's News

Labels

USA Politics

Breaking News

Turkey’s Erdogan to reveal ‘full details’ of Khashoggi’s death

North Korea accuses CIA of 'bio-chemical' plot against leadership

Trump Follows Instincts, Not Establishment, With Overtures to Kim and Duterte

Donald Trump’s warning of major conflict, as North Korea turns to Southeast Asian nations for support

Trump Warns That ‘Major, Major Conflict’ With North Korea Is Possible

China launches first aircraft carrier built entirely on its own amid tension over man-made islands

North Korea Stages Long-Range Artillery Drills

Criticism of Beijing’s North Korea Policy Comes From Unlikely Place: China

That World's News

That World's News

Contact Form

Labels