Hagel calls North Korea's nuclear ambitions a 'growing threat' - Fox News

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    North Korea cranks up pressure, nuclear reactor

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    North Korea vows to restart nuke plant

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    White House responds to North Korea's recent nuke threats

WASHINGTON –  Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday that North Korea's development of nuclear weapons poses a "growing threat" to the U.S. and its allies.

In a telephone call Tuesday evening to Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan, Hagel cited North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles and said Washington and Beijing should continue to cooperate on those problems.

"The secretary emphasized the growing threat to the U.S. and our allies posed by North Korea's aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and expressed to General Chang the importance of sustained U.S.-China dialogue and cooperation on these issues," Pentagon spokesman George Little said in a statement describing the phone call.

Little also disclosed that Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will visit China later this month. It would be Dempsey's first trip to China as head of the Joint Chiefs.

Hagel also invited the Chinese defense minister to visit the United States this year.

North Korea on Wednesday barred South Korean workers from entering a jointly run factory park just over the heavily armed border in the North, officials in Seoul said, a day after Pyongyang announced it would restart its long-shuttered plutonium reactor and increase production of nuclear weapons material.

Seoul's Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-suk said Pyongyang is allowing South Koreans to return home from Kaesong, but that about 480 South Koreans who had planned to travel to the park Wednesday were being refused entry.

North Korean authorities cited recent political circumstances on the Korean Peninsula when they delivered their decision to block South Korean workers from entering Kaesong, Kim said without elaborating.

The two sides do not allow their citizens to travel to the other country without approval, but an exception has previously been made each day for the South Koreans working at Kaesong.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon on Tuesday confirmed that it is positioning an array of military assets near the Korean Peninsula, as the White House stressed that the "entire national security team" is focused on the escalating threats out of Pyongyang -- with the latest being a pledge to restart its plutonium reactor.

Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking Tuesday at a news conference with the visiting foreign minister of South Korea, said recent belligerent rhetoric from North Korea is "unacceptable" and that the U.S. will defend itself, as well as South Korea and Japan, from any threat from the North.

The declaration of a resumption of plutonium production -- the most common fuel in nuclear weapons -- and other facilities at the main Nyongbyon nuclear complex will boost fears in Washington and among its allies about North Korea's timetable for building a nuclear-tipped missile that can reach the mainland U.S., technology it is not currently believed to have.

The amount of hostile language from North Korea in recent weeks was "extraordinary," Kerry said, adding that the isolated state should have no doubt that the U.S. will fulfill its treaty obligations to allies in the region.

Pentagon spokesman George Little said that two destroyer warships, the USS Decatur and USS McCain, have arrived in the region as part of a missile-defense mission. Previously, the Pentagon had only revealed that it had moved the USS McCain to the region.

"They have arrived at predetermined positions in the western Pacific, where they will be poised to respond to any missile threats to our allies or our territory," Little said Tuesday.

In addition, the Pentagon has already announced plans to have two sea-based radar systems in the western Pacific. One is already in northern Japan; the other has not yet deployed and is currently conducting non-North Korean related systems tests off Pearl Harbor.

The system in Japan can serve to protect the Korean peninsula as well as threats to the western United States that originate from North Korea.

North Korea on Wednesday barred South Korean workers from entering a jointly run factory park just over the heavily armed border in the North, officials in Seoul said, a day after Pyongyang announced it would restart its long-shuttered plutonium reactor and increase production of nuclear weapons material.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Seoul Seeks Ability to Make Nuclear Fuel - Wall Street Journal

By JAY SOLOMON

Yonhap/Reuters

An F-16 fighter jet lands at a U.S. base in Osan, South Korea, in an image provided by Yonhap.

WASHINGTON—South Korea is pressing the Obama administration for U.S. permission to produce its own nuclear fuel, a move that nonproliferation experts said could trigger a wider nuclear-arms race in North Asia and the Middle East.

The negotiation between Seoul and Washington, though part of a broader, long-term civilian nuclear cooperation agreement, is taking place as nuclear pressures swell on both sides of the Korean peninsula.

North Korea has expanded its atomic-weapons capability in recent months. It announced Tuesday that it was reopening a reactor complex used to harvest weapons-grade plutonium. Those actions have fueled calls in South Korea for the government in Seoul to respond by developing its own atomic-weapons capability.

South Korea's government has reassured Washington during the negotiations that it isn't seeking to develop the ability to build nuclear weapons. "This government has no intention of all of pursuing nuclear capabilities in terms of weapons," said a senior government official in Seoul.

But American lawmakers and proliferation experts are concerned that the technologies Seoul is seeking—the ability to enrich uranium and reprocess spent nuclear-reactor fuel—would provide it with the key technologies to produce the fissile materials for a bomb.

That capacity could further inflame tensions between the Koreas and risk sparking a broader arms race in Northeast Asia, potentially including Japan and Taiwan.

"Mutual animosities are feeding off each other on the Korean peninsula," said Tom Moore, who served for the past decade as the senior adviser on proliferation issues at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "South Korea has no economic or practical reasons to engage in these activities at this time."

U.S. negotiators fear that allowing South Korea to develop any of the requested technologies would have knock-on effects across the Middle East and Asia, where the U.S. has sought in recent years to seal deals that forbid countries from producing their own nuclear fuel. Jordan, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia could demand the same terms, and it would reinforce Iran's desire to continue with its nuclear program, these people worry.

"It could get to the point where you could no longer rely" on the current nonproliferation framework, said Mr. Moore, who is now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

By as early as next month, according to officials briefed on the diplomacy, South Korea and the U.S. are seeking to conclude the renegotiation of a 1972 nuclear-cooperation pact under which the U.S. provides Seoul with nuclear fuel and technology.

South Korea, however, is seeking to significantly increase its own technological capabilities as part of the agreement, according to these officials, so it can enrich uranium and reprocess the spent fuel discharged from the country's fleet of 22 nuclear-power reactors.

South Korea said it needs to be able to enrich uranium on its own to provide a steady supply of nuclear fuel for these reactors. It also said it needs the ability to reprocess the spent fuel in order to better store the waste, which is expected to reach 10,000 tons by 2016.

"They are pushing hard for this reprocessing ability," said Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), who met with senior South Korean officials last week in Seoul, including President Park Geun-hye, who is planning a visit to Washington in May. "There is a lot of national pride in this."

Mr. Corker, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stressed that Ms. Park and other senior South Korean officials said their government has no desire to pursue atomic weapons.

But he said he was struck by how many other South Korean politicians, including ruling party member Chung Mong-joon, said Seoul now needs to reconsider its long-standing pledge not to pursue an atomic bomb.

"For what it's worth, two-thirds of the population have said they'd like the country to have nuclear weapons," Mr. Corker said, referring to a recent South Korean poll.

Two opinion polls taken in the immediate aftermath of North Korea's third nuclear test, on Feb. 12 found over 60% support for nuclear weapons to be based in South Korea. Support levels are lower when the consequences of such a move are accounted for, including a potentially weakened alliance with the U.S.

The Obama administration has staunchly opposed allowing countries seeking nuclear-cooperation with the U.S. to engage in enrichment or reprocessing, because either path could be used to create the fissile material required to create an atomic weapon.

North Korea has mastered both technologies, according to the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations pressed the United Arab Emirates to agree to a nuclear-cooperation agreement in 2009 that explicitly forbids the Arab country to produce any of its own nuclear fuel.

President Barack Obama called the successful completion of the U.A.E. deal the "gold standard" for future U.S. nuclear-cooperation agreements. Washington has been seeking to replicate these same terms in negotiations it is currently engaged in with Seoul, Amman, Hanoi and Riyadh.

All of these capitals, however, have balked at agreeing to similarly rigorous terms, citing both economic and security reasons, according to U.S. officials who have taken part in the negotiations.

South Korea has argued that it shouldn't be wholly reliant on outside counties for the nuclear fuel that powers much of its electrical supply. South Korea has stressed that the reprocessing technology it is seeking to master, called pyro processing, is crucial to managing its growing nuclear waste, which could potentially pose an environmental threat.

South Korea says it will agree to extensive monitoring by the IAEA of all its nuclear sites to guard against any proliferation fears. Japan has a nuclear cooperation agreement with the U.S. dating back to the 1980s that allows Tokyo to reprocess the spent fuel from its nuclear reactors.

South Korea politicians are also striking a nationalist tone, arguing that the U.S. shouldn't deny Seoul the same technologies that North Korea has acquired. Pyongyang kicked out IAEA inspectors in 2002 and pulled out of the U.N.'s nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which seeks to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.

On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met in Washington with his South Korean counterpart, Yun Byung Se, and discussed the nuclear-cooperation agreement.

But the top American diplomat and other U.S. officials have remained silent about the state of the negotiations.

South Korea's current nuclear pact with Washington expires in 2014, but U.S. and South Korean officials said the terms of a new deal would need to be agreed upon by June in order to gain congressional approval by year-end. South Korea is currently totally reliant on uranium imports to fuel its reactors, and between 20% and 30% comes from the U.S.

The U.S. has had a checkered history with South Korea on the issue of nuclear weapons.

Seoul formally renounced in 1992 the pursuit of atomic explosives in a declaration that called for the "denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

Just two years later, the Clinton administration threatened military strikes on the North when the U.S. and IAEA discovered that Pyongyang was diverting plutonium from its Yongbyon nuclear reactor for a secret atomic weapons program.

Seoul was caught by the U.S. pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program in the 1970s, under the leadership of Park Chung Hee, a general and the father of South Korea's current leader. Mr. Park was concerned about the calls by then-President Jimmy Carter for the U.S. to pull its remaining troops out of the Korean peninsula.

Similarly, Sen. Corker said he heard concerns from Ms. Park and other South Korean leaders about the long-term commitment of the U.S. to maintain a military presence in Asia, in part, because of Washington's fiscal issues. The lawmaker said this explained why some South Korean politicians believed Seoul needed to play a greater role in the country's defense.

"I assured her we will be there for them," Mr. Corker said of his meeting with South Korea's president.

—Alastair Gale in Seoul contributed to this article.

Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com

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US to boost nuclear missile defences

15 March 2013 Last updated at 13:55 ET

The Pentagon is expected to announce plans to boost missile defences on the US West Coast to counter the threat from North Korea.

The US plans to add 14 interceptors, which can shoot down missiles in flight, to those already in place in California and Alaska, officials say.

US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel is set to outline the decision at 15:00 (19:00 GMT) on Friday.

Tensions have escalated after North Korea's third nuclear test last month.

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North Korea threat of nuclear attack predictable but worrisome - NBCNews.com

In a sign that North Korea's threats are wearing thin, their closest ally – China -- voted with the U.S. for tough economic sanctions on luxury goods. North Korea responded by announcing they "will be exercising our right to preemptive nuclear attack." NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

By Robert Windrem
Senior investigative producer, NBC News

Thursday’s announcement by North Korea that it could launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack against the United States in the face of new U.N. sanctions is a predictable escalation of the isolated nation’s increasingly aggressive stance toward Washington over the past year. But experts note that Pyongyang’s recent advances in its nuclear weapons and missile programs mean that such bellicose rhetoric cannot be taken lightly.

ANALYSIS

The escalation of the North’s oratory began not long after the country’s 28-year-old leader, Kim Jong Un,  took over from his late father, Kim Jong Il, on Dec. 28, 2011. It has been accompanied by two space launches – one successful – and a third nuclear weapons test.

 It is not unusual for the North to make threats against the U.S., Japan or South Korea. And on occasion -- as in the case of the 2010 artillery barrage of Yeonpyeong Island and an earlier attack on a South Korean gunboat -- it has carried out these threats.  It has never taken any military action after threatening the United States, however.

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Some analysts have suggested that the latest round of threats is intended to show that the young Kim will continue his father’s legacy of hostility toward the U.S.

To what end?

North Korea has long wanted the U.S. to sit down with its negotiators to hammer out an agreement to end the Korean War, which ended in 1953 not in a peace treaty but in a truce.

The North would like to gain concessions from the U.S. in such a negotiation, but its escalating threats and rhetoric have the opposite effect:  The Obama administration, like preceding administrations, has steadfastly refused to negotiate with Pyongyang.

KCNA / Reuters

This picture, released Tuesday by North Korea's official KCNA news agency, is said to show a rally by citizens and soldiers to support a statement by the Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army that it will scrap the armistice signed in 1953 that ended a three-year war with South Korea if the South and the United States continue with annual military drills.

The problem is that North Korea, which has long taken a backseat in U.S. councils to the Middle East, does have military capabilities that could at the very least threaten U.S. interests in North Asia.

According to a recent analysis, North Korea has a weapon stockpile that could threaten both Japan and South Korea and, in longer term, the United States. Some of the weapons have already been deployed, say U.S. officials, who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity. Moreover, the North has begun research into more advanced and dangerous weapons, possibly even thermonuclear weapons, they say. 

At the high end of the stockpile range, U.S. officials and other researchers said North Korea may already have up to "a few dozen" nuclear weapons that could be fitted atop its vast fleet of ballistic missiles. Those missiles are limited to an intermediate range, capable of hitting targets in Japan, South Korea or elsewhere in the northern Pacific, including U.S. military bases as far south as Guam, the officials believe.

Related story: UN passes sanctions despite North Korea threat of 'pre-emptive nuclear attack'

The U.S. believes the space launch tests are part of a development plan for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the continental United States with a payload of several hundred kilotons — 10 to 20 times the size of the bombs that destroyed the Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

U.S. officials publicly express confidence that the national missile defense system based in Alaska would be able to shoot down any incoming North Korean ICBM.

“I can tell you that the United States is fully capable of defending against any North Korean ballistic missile attack,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday in response to a question about the North Korean threat.

 He also said the U.N. sanctions will make it harder for Pyongyang to continue to make progress on its weapons and missiles. 

“North Korea … will now face new barriers to developing its banned nuclear and ballistic missile programs,” he said. “Resolution 2094 increases North Korea's isolation and demonstrates to North Korea's leaders the increasing costs they pay for defying the international community.” 

For the past several years, the U.S. also has been monitoring North Korean research into thermonuclear weapons — hydrogen bombs and bombs known as boosted-fission weapons, in which plutonium and uranium are combined for a higher energy yield. (The problem is that if the North conducted a test and claimed that it was thermonuclear, the U.S. would have difficulty determining if the North was telling the truth. The test site at Kilchu is far enough inland that the U.S. would not have access to the particulate matter needed to make an accurate determination, experts say. )

David Guttenfelder, AP's chief Asia photographer, was given unprecedented access on his 2011 journey to Pyongyang and areas outside the nation's showcase capital.

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, or ISIS, a nonpartisan nuclear arms research group, said last year that any tests in the future may also be about ensuring the reliability of North Korea's current weapons design.

"Once you get beyond a dozen, it makes sense to test type and reliability of your weapons," he said. Albright said then that his group's estimate of North Korea's weapons stockpile is a bit less than those provided by the U.S. officials, but that ISIS, too, believes Pyongyang has "missile-deliverable weapons."

The design of the weapons is believed to be based on Chinese models (as were the first generation Pakistani nuclear weapons). The design is basic, and was developed in the 1960s with help from the Soviet Union, which used it to produce a whole line of nuclear warheads.

While some analysts suggested that the North planned its December rocket launch to gain attention ahead of the presidential election in South Korea , some in the U.S. non-proliferation community think otherwise. They expect that once the North feels comfortable with its ICBM technology, it will deploy the missiles.  They point to the Musudan intermediate range missile which was tested in middle of the last decade, then deployed — presumably with nuclear warheads — and aimed at Japan.

Once the North has confidence in the long-range missile based on the space rocket, U.S. officials believe they will deploy it as well, making North Korea the third nation to have nuclear weapons targeted at the United States, after Russia and China.

Many in the Obama administration see that as a more frightening prospect than Iran gaining nuclear weapons, believing that Tehran is a rational actor that will serve its own national interest and preserve the regime, compared to successive generations of North Korean leaders who have shown that they are unpredictable and erratic.

But would it force the U.S. to conduct face-to-face talks with the North? State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in December that the North has a better option.

Referring to Kim Jong Un, Nuland said: "He can plot a way forward that ends the isolation, that brings relief and a different way of life and progress to his people, or he can further isolate them with steps like this. He can spend his time and his money shooting off missiles, or he can feed his people, but he can't have both."

NBC News' Shawna Thomas contributed to this report; this piece is an updated version of a post originally published on Dec. 13, 2012.

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