North Korean monitoring service 38 North said Wednesday the country’s Punggye-ri nuclear site is “primed and ready” for a sixth nuclear test.

“The activity during the past six weeks is suggestive of the final preparations for a test,” 38 North analyst Joseph Bermudez told CNN.

Their prediction comes as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday that North Korea may have the capability to deliver missiles equipped with sarin nerve gas.

He and other analysts pore over commercial satellite imagery of the testing site, looking for signs of activity similar to that prior to other tests.

Bermudez and his colleague Jack Liu correctly predicted the last nuclear test, in September 2016. Since late February they have been warning of increased activity at the site, particularly new equipment arriving, activity at the command center, and excavation and water pumping from entrances to the underground testing site.

“We watch what changes from image to image,” he said. “We take the current image and look back several months and compare it to what was happening then.”

After an uptick in recent months, recent satellite images show excavation work and water pumping appears to have stopped, Liu and Bermudez said, indicating to them that a test may be imminent.

Speaking at an event in Tokyo Thursday, Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said “North Korea’s nuclear program is showing steady progress.”

North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests in total, three of them under current leader Kim Jong Un, who has significantly ramped up the country’s program.

“North Korea believes the only way to deter the US from attacking them and maintaining the power of the Kim regime is by the possession of nuclear weapons,” Bermudez said.

North Korean officials told CNN in Pyongyang this week that the decision by US President Donald Trump to bomb a Syrian airfield, as well as his dispatching a US navy carrier strike group to northern Asia, showed the importance of the nuclear program.

“The aggressive acts of war on the part of the United States are getting increasingly reckless,” the official said.

Trump has promised to “be effective” on North Korea, and called on China to play a role containing the regime’s nuclear program. Following a talk between him and Chinese President Xi Jinping Wednesday, Trump said China “wants to do the right thing.”

Bermudez said the regime has “repeatedly stated that if Libya or Iraq had nuclear weapons the US would not have attacked them.”

North Korea will mark the “Day of the Sun” on April 15, to mark the 105th anniversary of the birth of the country’s founder Kim Il Sung. The date has typically been a key one for weapons tests and other displays of strength.

However, none of the five previous nuclear tests have been conducted around the anniversary, and while Bermudez said the evidence suggests there is “probably a sixth coming up,” ultimately preparations did not mean much without a final say so from the country’s supreme leader.

“It really depends on one person and that’s Kim Jong Un,” he said. “No one else is going to make the decision.”

Previous years have seen grand military parades, mass celebrations and weapons tests conducted on the “Day of the Sun.”

“It’s a demonstration of national pride,” Bermudez said, adding that satellite imagery appeared to show thousands of people and hundreds of vehicles practicing this week for the event.

Ahead of this year’s anniversary, Kim presided over a drill by special operations units, helicopter gunships and other units, according to state news agency KCNA.

“(Kim said) those combatants carrying out their duties independently and proactively were reminiscent of fierce tigers,” KCNA reported Thursday, adding that the timing of the drill was “significant” given Kim Il Sung’s upcoming memorial.

Often the “Day of the Sun” is a key time for Pyongyang to show off its latest armaments. In 2012, months after Kim Jong Un became leader following his father’s death, North Korea unveiled what it claimed was its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in a huge military parade.

Last year, South Korean officials said the North tested an intermediate-range Musudan missile, but it failed.

The test was not publicized inside North Korea. Weapons expert Markus Schiller told CNN last week the Musudan is likely North Korea’s most domestically developed missile, unlike others that are based on Soviet or Chinese designs, making it a key point of pride for the regime.

In terms of national pride though, nothing comes close to the nuclear program, and Pyongyang may decide that the best way to honor its late leader — and defy pressure from the US and China — is with a sixth nuclear test. </s> North Korea’s deputy U.N. ambassador accused the United States on Monday of turning the Korean Peninsula into ”the world’s biggest hotspot” and creating ”a dangerous situation in which a thermonuclear war may break out at any moment.” Kim In Ryong told a news conference that ”if the U.S. dares opt for a military action,” North Korea ”is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the U.S.” He said the Trump administration’s deployment of the Carl Vinson nuclear carrier task group to waters off the Korean Peninsula again ”proves the U.S. reckless moves for invading the DPRK have reached a serious phase of its scenario.”

Kim stressed that U.S.-South Korean military exercises being staged now are the largest-ever ”aggressive war drill” aimed at his country, formally the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. ”The prevailing grave situation proves once again that the DPRK was entirely just when it increased in every way its military capabilities for self-defense and pre-emptive attack with a nuclear force as a pivot,” he said.

Tensions have escalated over North Korean moves to accelerate its weapons development. The North conducted two nuclear tests and 24 ballistic missile tests last year, defying six Security Council sanctions resolutions banning any testing, and it has conducted additional missile tests this year including one this past weekend that failed. Kim spoke on a day that U.S. Vice President Mike Pence traveled to the tense zone dividing North and South Korea and warned Pyongyang that after years of testing the U.S. and South Korea with its nuclear ambitions, ”the era of strategic patience is over.”

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After 25 years of trying to deal patiently with North Korea over its nuclear program, Pence said, ”all options are on the table” to deal with threat. And he warned that any use of nuclear weapons by Pyongyang would be met with ”an overwhelming and effective response.”Kim said the Trump administration is ”trumpeting about `peace by strength”’ by deploying ”one strategic striking means after another in South Korea,” citing the Carl Vinson carrier group, nuclear strategic bombers and stealth fighters.

But he said the ”the DPRK remains unfazed.” ”We never beg for peace but we will take the toughest counteraction against the provocateurs in order to defend ourselves by powerful force of arms and keep to the road chosen by ourselves,” Kim said. He warned that as long as the United States and its allies ”scheme to bring down the socialist system in the DPRK,” the government will keep increasing ”its military muscle” to protect the country.

Kim said the DPRK’s policy is shaped by the Trump administration’s push for ”high intensity sanctions” against the country, deploying tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea and launching military action aimed at ”beheading” the North’s leadership headed by Kim Jong Un. He said rolling back the hostile U.S. policy toward the DPRK ”is the precondition to solving all the problems in the Korean Peninsula.”

Kim called the press conference to ”categorically reject” the U.S. decision to hold an open meeting of the Security Council on April 28 on North Korea’s nuclear program which is scheduled to be chaired by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. He called it ”another abuse of authority” by the United States, which holds the Security Council presidency this month, and a violation of the DPRK’s sovereignty.

Pointing to the recent U.S. airstrike on a Syrian base in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack, Kim said ”the U.S. without any hesitation perpetrates military attacks” and threatens sovereign states. He said the United States insists ”on the gangster-like logic that its invasion of a sovereign state is `decisive, just and proportionate’ and contributes to `defending’ the international order in its bid to apply it to the Korean peninsula as well.”

Kim ignored questions about the DPRK’s relationship with China and reports that the government didn’t respond to requests from Chinese officials for a meeting.Instead he reiterated two Chinese proposals that the U.S. rejected. One called for ”dual-track” talks on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula – the top priority of the United States – and replacing the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War with a formal peace treaty, a key demand of Pyongyang. The other called for a freeze on U.S.-South Korean military exercises and a freeze on DPRK missile and nuclear tests. </s> SEOUL: North Korea suggested on Monday (May 1) it will continue its nuclear weapons tests, saying it will bolster its nuclear force "to the maximum" in a "consecutive and successive way at any moment" in the face of what it calls U.S. aggression and hysteria.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said a "major, major conflict" with North Korea is possible over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, while China said last week the situation on the Korean peninsula could escalate or slip out of control.

In a show of force, the United States has sent the nuclear-powered USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group to waters off the Korean peninsula to join drills with South Korea to counter a series of threats of destruction from North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

"Now that the U.S. is kicking up the overall racket for sanctions and pressure against the DPRK, pursuant to its new DPRK policy called 'maximum pressure and engagement', the DPRK will speed up at the maximum pace the measure for bolstering its nuclear deterrence," a spokesman for North Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement carried by its official KCNA news agency.

North Korea's "measures for bolstering the nuclear force to the maximum will be taken in a consecutive and successive way at any moment and any place decided by its supreme leadership," the spokesman added.

Reclusive North Korea has carried out five nuclear tests and a series of missile tests in defiance of U.N. Security Council and unilateral resolutions. It has been conducting such tests at an unprecedented rate and is believed to have made progress in developing intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles.

It test-launched a missile on Saturday which Washington and Seoul said was unsuccessful, but which nevertheless drew widespread international condemnation.

South Korea said the United States had reaffirmed it would shoulder the cost of deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system to counter the North Korean threat, days after Trump said Seoul should pay for the US$1 billion battery.

In a telephone call on Sunday, Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, reassured his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan-jin, that the U.S. alliance with South Korea was its top priority in the Asia-Pacific region, the South's presidential office said.

Trump, asked about his message to North Korea after the latest missile test, told reporters: "You'll soon find out," but did not elaborate on what the U.S. response would be.

Trump stepped up his outreach to allies in Asia over the weekend to discuss the North Korean threat and make sure all are "on the same page" if action is needed, a top White House official said.

"There is nothing right now facing this country and facing the region that is a bigger threat than what is happening in North Korea," White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told ABC's "This Week."

The THAAD deployment has drawn protests from China, which says the powerful radar that can penetrate its territory will undermine regional security, and from residents of the area in which it is being deployed, worried they will be a target for North Korean missiles.

The United States is seeking more help from China, the North's major ally, to rein in Pyongyang's nuclear and missile development. Trump, in the Reuters interview, praised Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping as a "good man".

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks over fears the North may conduct a long-range missile test, or its sixth nuclear test, around the time of the April 15 anniversary of its state founder's birth.

North Korea, technically still at war with the South after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty, regularly threatens to destroy the United States, Japan and South Korea and has said before it will pursue its nuclear and missile programmes to counter perceived U.S. aggression. </s> Washington: US President Donald Trump said he would be "honoured" to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un under the right conditions, dialing back threats of military action against the regime Monday.

As Pyongyang threatens to carry out a sixth nuclear test that would further enflame tensions on the Korean peninsula, Trump appeared to offer the prospect of a diplomatic off-ramp.

"If it's under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that," Trump said.

ALSO READ | North Korea Warns of Nuclear Test at 'Any Time'

In recent weeks Trump has threatened and berated the regime, fearing it may be months away from marrying nuclear and long range missile technology — making a strike against the western United States possible.

Trump's main gambit has been to encourage China to use its leverage to pressure Pyongyang — a strategy that has failed to produce results in the past.

In the latest rhetoric to fuel jitters across the region, North Korea warned Monday that it was prepared to carry out a nuclear test "at any time and at any location" set by its leadership.

The regime will continue bolstering its "pre-emptive nuclear attack" capabilities unless Washington scraps its hostile policies, a spokesman for the North's foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run KCNA news agency.

ALSO READ | US Says Time to Act on North Korea, China Says Not up to Beijing Alone

"The DPRK's measures for bolstering the nuclear force to the maximum will be taken in a consecutive and successive way at any moment and any place decided by its supreme leadership," the spokesman added, apparently referring to a sixth nuclear test and using the North's official name, the Democratic Republic of Korea.

- CIA director in South Korea -

The North has carried out five nuclear tests in the last 11 years and is widely believed to be making progress toward its dream of building a missile capable of delivering a warhead to the continental United States.

It raises the tone of its warnings every spring, when Washington and Seoul carry out joint exercises it condemns as rehearsals for invasion. But this time fears of conflict have been fuelled by a cycle of threats from both sides.

ALSO READ | North Korea Fires Ballistic Missile, Defying US Push For New Sanctions

The joint drills have just ended, but naval exercises are continuing in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) with a US strike group led by the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.

CIA director Mike Pompeo was in South Korea on Monday, the US embassy in Seoul confirmed, following reports of an unannounced visit as tensions mount on the peninsula.

Pompeo's visit coincided with news that the controversial US missile defense system known as THAAD — whose deployment has angered China — is now operational in South Korea.

"It has reached initial intercept capability," a US defense official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

- 'A pretty smart cookie' -

Seoul regularly warns that Pyongyang can carry out a test whenever it decides to do so.

Trump on Sunday repeated his determination to resolve the threat posed by North Korea, warning in a CBS interview: "We cannot let what's been going on for a long period of years continue."



ALSO READ | In Call With Donald Trump, Xi Jinping Urges 'Restraint' on North Korea

But the US leader also offered some backhanded praise for Kim, saying he had faced a formidable challenge in taking over the country at a reported age of 27 after his father's death in 2011.

"So obviously, he's a pretty smart cookie," he said.

ALSO READ | North Korea Warns of 'Super-Mighty Preemptive Strike' as US Plans Next Move

That comment left the White House struggling to downplay Trump's apparent admiration.

"His point was he assumed power at a young age when his father passed away and there's a lot of potential threats that could have come his way and he's obviously managed to lead a country forward,” said Press Secretary Sean Spicer. </s> North Korea's main nuclear testing site poses a serious risk of radiation leakage after five successive bomb tests caused a mountain to collapse, Chinese geologists say.

The notorious facility has been ruled unsafe for future testing and authorities have been urged to monitor "leakage of radioactive materials", a study found.

Issuing their warning, the authors of the paper - Tian Dongdong, Yao Jiawen and Wen Lianxing - said careful attention should be paid to any radioactive leaks following "research finding that the North Korea nuclear test site at Mantapsan has collapsed".

The study was by China's university of science and technology, which collected data following North Korea's most powerful bomb test on September 3.

Experts believe the estimated 100 kilotons of TNT explosion triggered an initial collapse of the site, followed by an "earthquake swarm" over several weeks, reports Sky News.

It's not the first time nuclear tests have concerned Chinese geologists - the site is a mere 100km from the border.

And there are fears further testing could threaten volcanic eruption at Mount Paektu, on the North Korea-China border.

Just days ago, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un promised the country would stop conducting nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests.

It is believed he made the vow ahead of his meeting with Donald Trump.

Kim said his country no longer needed to conduct tests because it has completed its goal of developing nuclear weapons.

“To guarantee suspension of nuclear tests in a transparent manner, the republic’s northern nuclear test site will be abolished," state media Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

“The overall projects of the party and the country will be geared towards building of a socialist economy, and all our efforts will be made towards it."

The North's state media, on Saturday, said the nuclear test site would be abolished in order to pursue economic growth and peace on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea also said it would engage in talks with the international community, paving the way for the summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in planned for tomorrow and a meeting with Donald Trump in late May or early June.

Trump welcomed the news and said he is looking forward to the summit with Kim.

"North Korea has agreed to suspend all Nuclear Tests and close up a major test site. This is very good news for North Korea and the World - big progress! Look forward to our Summit," Trump said on Twitter.

The President has said the US respects North Korea, and this was recipricated.

His comment came after "direct talks at very high levels, extremely high levels" with North Korean leader Kim, he said..

Trump had sent the US Secretary of State to the country for a top-secret meeting over Easter.

The UK Government said in a ­statement: “We hope this indicates an effort to negotiate in good faith.

"A long-term commitment to halt all nuclear tests and ICBM launches would be a positive step.

“We remain committed to working with our international partners to bring about our goal of a complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, and to do so through peaceful means.”

Tomorrow's historic summit between North and South Korea will discuss nuclear ambitions of the North.

It'll be the first time summit between the two countries in a decade. </s> WASHINGTON, United States — The United States warned Sunday it could launch a “massive military response” to threats from North Korea following Pyongyang’s provocative detonation of what it claimed was a miniaturized hydrogen bomb.

The comments from defense secretary Jim Mattis came after President Donald Trump called an emergency meeting of his national security advisers to discuss what was an unexpectedly powerful nuclear test said to exceed in magnitude the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan.

Mattis told reporters: “Any threat to the United States or its territories, including Guam, or our allies will be met with a massive military response, a response both effective and overwhelming.

“We are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea. But as I said, we have many options to do so,” he added.

Trump had earlier denounced the test, tweeting that the time for “appeasement” was over and threatening drastic economic sanctions, including “stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea.”

US monitors measured a powerful 6.3-magnitude earthquake near the North’s main testing site, felt as far as parts of China, with an aftershock possibly caused by the collapse of a tunnel at the site.

The North hailed its test of what it described as a hydrogen bomb designed for a long-range missile as “a perfect success.”

Pyongyang residents celebrated as a jubilant television newsreader hailed the “unprecedentedly large” blast; she said it had moved the country closer to “the final goal of completing the state nuclear force.”

Neighboring South Korea reacted by conducting a live-fire exercise simulating an attack on the North’s nuclear site, state news agency Yonhap reported, hitting “designated targets in the East Sea” with missiles and F-15K fighter jets.

The South’s military said the range to the simulated targets were equivalent to the North’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site in its northeastern province.

The exercise came after South Korean President Moon Jae-In, once an advocate of dialogue with the North, called for the “strongest punishment,” joining a chorus of international condemnation of Pyongyang’s sixth nuclear test including from China.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the test “torpedoes the global non-proliferation regime, violates UN Security Council resolutions” and threatens regional peace, while adding, in a phone call to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, that the crisis “should be resolved only by political and diplomatic means.”

And UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned the test as “profoundly destabilizing,” while the Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Monday.

Hours before the test, the North released images of Kim at his country’s Nuclear Weapons Institute, inspecting the device it called a “thermonuclear weapon with super explosive power” entirely made “by our own efforts and technology,” according to the Korean Central News Agency.

A series of US and United Nations-backed sanctions seem to have had little effect on Pyongyang.

But US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday his department was preparing potent new measures that would “cut off North Korea economically.”

“I’m going to draft a sanctions package and send it to the president for his strong consideration that anybody that wants to do trade or business with them will be prevented from doing trade or business with us,” Mnuchin said on “Fox News Sunday.”

While the United States has virtually no trade with the North, the burden of sanctions such as Mnuchin described would fall heavily on China, which buys about 90 percent of North Korean exports.

In Seoul, President Moon Jae-In called for new United Nations sanctions to “completely isolate North Korea.” He said the South would discuss deploying “the strongest strategic assets of the US military” — a possible reference to tactical nuclear weapons, which the US withdrew from South Korea in 1991.

While US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke by phone with his Asian counterparts, US and South Korean military chiefs also conferred.

Seoul’s defense ministry said the respective chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff — General Jeong Kyeong-Doo and General Joseph Dunford — had “agreed to prepare a South Korea-US military counteraction and to put it into action at the earliest date.”

South Korean experts said the tremor near the North’s main test site was five to six times stronger than that from a 10-kiloton test a year ago.

Pyongyang raised tensions in July with two successful tests of an ICBM which apparently brought much of the US mainland within range.

Last week, it fired a missile over Japan.

Jeffrey Lewis of website armscontrolwonk said Sunday’s blast clearly was “a staged thermonuclear weapon,” representing a significant advance.

Trump has warned Pyongyang that it faces “fire and fury” and that Washington’s weapons are “locked and loaded.”

But even some Trump advisers say US military options are limited when Pyongyang has the capacity to quickly wipe out much of the South Korean capital Seoul.

Analysts believe Pyongyang’s weapons program is aimed both at self-defense and strengthening its hand in any negotiations with the United States.

“North Korea will continue with their nuclear weapons program unless the US proposes talks,” Koo Kab-Woo of Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies told AFP. CBB </s> North Korea says it's developed a "super explosive" hydrogen bomb that fits on an intercontinental ballistic missile, according to multiple media reports citing the country's state news agency.

During a visit to the country's Nuclear Weapons Institute, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watched as the purported H-bomb was loaded into a new ICBM.

Photos released by the Korean Central News Agency show Kim observing a silver, bulbous metal casing. KCNA claims it's a "homemade" H-bomb with "super explosive power," according the Associated Press:



"The North said in its statement Sunday that its H-bomb 'is a multi-functional thermonuclear nuke with great destructive power which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack according to strategic goals.' "Kim, according to the statement, claimed that 'all components of the H-bomb were homemade ... thus enabling the country to produce powerful nuclear weapons as many as it wants.' "



In its report, KCNA (via Xinhua, China's official news agency) also said the North Korean leader "guided the work for nuclear weaponization on the spot," as part of "the final-stage research and development for perfecting the state nuclear force."

Following the country's claim of an accelerated nuclear arsenal, President Trump spoke with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about efforts to maximize pressure on North Korea.

"The two leaders reaffirmed the importance of close cooperation between the United States, Japan, and South Korea in the face of the growing threat from North Korea," the White House says. "President Trump noted that he looks forward to continued trilateral coordination on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly."

The conversation on Saturday, as Trump was returning from flood-ravaged Louisiana, is the third time the two leaders have spoken since Tuesday, NPR's Scott Horsley reports.

The North test-fired two long-range missiles in July, driving the United Nations Security Council to adopt a resolution last month to impose new sanctions on Pyongyang.

In response to the heightened sanctions, Pyongyang said it was ready with "ultimate measures". A day later, President Trump threatened to meet North Korea with "fire and fury."

But as NPR's Elise Hu reported, Jenny Town, the assistant director of the U.S.-Korea Institute at John Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies says a policy of increasing pressure is misconstrued as "hostility," which, Town argues, "justifies its need for nuclear weapons."

As the Two-Way reported last month, U.S. intelligence analysts believe North Korea has already developed a warhead that can be placed on its ballistic missiles, including an ICBM capable of reaching U.S. territory. </s> North Korea has promised to send more "gift packages" to the US after its latest nuclear test raised fresh tensions in the Korean peninsula. Refusing to scale down any of its weapons programme, the North said it is determined to press on with improving its nuclear and missile arsenal.

The hermit kingdom of North Korea conducted a major nuclear test, the country's sixth and most powerful detonation, on Sunday, 3 September. This had left global powers scrambling to condemn the provocative act, with the UN Security Council choosing harsh words to criticise the North.

Responding to condemnation pouring in from across the world, including from its key economic partner and geopolitical ally, China, Pyongyang has made it clear it has no intention of backing off from any of its activities.

"I am proud of saying that just two days ago on the 3rd of September, DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea — North Korea's official name] successfully carried out a hydrogen bomb test for intercontinental ballistic rocket under its plan for building a strategic nuclear force," Han Tae-song, Pyongyang's envoy to the UN in Geneva, told a UN-sponsored gathering.

"The recent self-defence measures by my country, DPRK, are a gift package addressed to none other than the US. The US will receive more gift packages from my country as long as it relies on reckless provocations and futile attempts to put pressure on the DPRK," added Han hinting that more missile tests could be carried out in the near future.

According to UN regulations, the North is prohibited from conducting ballistic missile tests and nuclear detonations but the reclusive regime has been continuously defying those global calls. While the US has called for the UN Security Council to vote on fresh sanctions on 11 September, Russia, which has veto power, said it was "a little premature" to come up with such punitive measures.

Amid all these tensions in the region, US President Donald Trump has also allowed South Korea and Japan — both key partners of the US under immediate threat from North Korean weapons — to purchase more "highly sophisticated" military equipment from the US. </s> South Korea's defense minister on Monday said it was worth reviewing the redeployment of American tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula to guard against the North, a step that analysts warn would sharply increase the risk of an accidental conflict.

As concern over Korea deepened following North Korea's huge nuclear test Sunday, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was "begging for war."

Here in Seoul, the Defense Ministry warned that Pyongyang might be preparing to launch another missile into the Pacific Ocean, perhaps an intercontinental ballistic missile theoretically capable of reaching the mainland United States.

President Donald Trump and his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-in, spoke on the phone for 40 minutes Monday night, Korean time - some 34 hours after the nuclear test and more than 24 hours after Trump took to Twitter to criticize Moon's "talk of appeasement."

The two agreed to remove the limit on allowed payloads for South Korean missiles - something Seoul had been pushing for - as a way to increase deterrence against North Korea, according to a statement from South Korea's Blue House.

They agreed as well to work together to punish North Korea for Sunday's nuclear test, pledging "to strengthen joint military capabilities," a White House statement said, and to "maximize pressure on North Korea using all means at their disposal."

In a later phone call, Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel "reaffirmed" the necessity of coordinating a response at the United Nations.

At a U.N. Security Council meeting, Haley pressed for the "strongest possible" sanctions against the North. The administration plans to circulate a new sanctions draft this week. Haley did not spell out how she would overcome the objections of veto-wielding permanent members China and Russia.

But she cautioned, "War is never something the United States wants. We don't want it now. But our country's patience is not unlimited. We will defend our allies and our territory."

Haley ruled out the "freeze for freeze" proposal backed by China and Russia, which would suspend U.S. joint military exercises with South Korea in return for suspension of North Korean nuclear and missile tests.

"When a rogue regime has a nuclear weapon and an ICBM pointed at you, you do not take steps to lower your guard. No one would do that. We certainly won't," she said.

Instead, she reiterated a White House threat from Sunday to cut off trade with any countries that also trade with North Korea. That would presumably include China, with which the United States had nearly $650 billion worth of trade in goods and services last year.

"The United States will look at every country that does business with North Korea as a country that is giving aid to their reckless and dangerous nuclear intentions," she said.

Her remarks appeared to be unpersuasive. "China will never allow chaos and war" in Korea, said Liu Jieyi, the Chinese ambassador to the United Nations. Sanctions alone will not solve the crisis, said Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia.

Earlier Monday, South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo said that he asked his American counterpart, Jim Mattis, during talks at the Pentagon last week that strategic assets such as U.S. aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and B-52 bombers be sent to South Korea more regularly.

"I told him that it would be good for strategic assets to be sent regularly to the Korean Peninsula and that some South Korean lawmakers and media are strongly pushing for tactical nuclear weapons [to be redeployed]," Song told a parliamentary hearing on North Korea's nuclear test, without disclosing Mattis's response.

A poll that YTN, a cable news channel, commissioned in August found that 68 percent of respondents said they supported bringing tactical nuclear weapons back to South Korea.

"The redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons is an alternative worth a full review," Song said, echoing a position closely associated with conservatives in South Korea but not with progressives like Moon, who was elected president in May after vowing to engage with the North.

The United States had about 100 nuclear-armed weapons, including short-range artillery, stationed in South Korea until 1991. Then President George H.W. Bush signed the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives and withdrew all tactical nuclear weapons that had been deployed abroad.

Shortly afterward, the two Koreas signed an agreement committing to making the peninsula free of nuclear weapons - a deal that North Korea violated by developing its own nuclear arms. But Pyongyang has maintained that Seoul has also broken its promise because remaining under the U.S. nuclear umbrella is tantamount, it says, to having such weapons.

After the defense minister spoke at the hearing, the South Korean president's office said that it was not considering redeploying tactical nuclear weapons. "Our government's firm stance on the nuclear-free peninsula remains unchanged," said Kim Dong-jo, a spokesman for Moon.

Military experts in the United States are almost universally opposed to the idea of deploying strategic or tactical weapons in South Korea.

"The thing that most concerns me about redeployment is that it introduces more room for miscalculation or unintended escalation," said Catherine Dill of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California.

In that situation, the ability to react more quickly could be a negative factor.

From the perspective of the military alliance between the United States and South Korea, having long-range ballistic missiles or strategic bombers is "perfectly sufficient" to continue to deter North Korea, Dill said.

As alliance partners, the U.S. and South Korean militaries work in close cooperation, regularly conducting drills together. This includes sending "strategic assets" such as bombers stationed on the Pacific island of Guam over South Korea on a regular basis, and having submarines make port calls during exercises.

As the North Korean threat has increased this year, the United States has sent F-35 stealth aircraft and other strike fighters on flyovers across the southern half of the peninsula in a not-so-thinly veiled warning to Kim. The U.S. Pacific Command even released photos last week of B-1B Lancers dropping bombs on a range on the southern side of the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas.

But a growing number of policymakers in Seoul say that Guam is too far away and that, if the South comes under attack from North Korea, it can't wait the two-plus hours it would take American bombers to arrive from their base in the Pacific.
North Korea vows to accelerate its nuclear weapons programme to “maximum pace” and test a nuclear device “at any time” in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's aggressive stance towards the regime.