Russian Defence Minister arrives in North Korea
Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu arrived in North Korea on Tuesday, TASS News Agency reported citing Moscow's defence ministry.
Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu arrived in North Korea on Tuesday, TASS News Agency reported citing Moscow's defence ministry.
Taking a positive view of Quad that brings together India, Japan, Australia and the United States on a common platform, the official declined to confirm if South Korea would like to be a member of the grouping.
North Korea still appears to be operating facilities at a now-shuttered joint industrial complex in Pyongyang's border city of Kaesong despite Seoul's repeated warnings against the unauthorised move, the South Korean Unification Ministry said on Thursday.
North Korea has adopted a new law aimed at protecting state secrets, amid apparent efforts to tighten internal discipline.
The JCS said it detected the SRBM launch from the Sunan area in Pyongyang at 1.49 a.m., and that the missile flew some 700 km at an apogee of 50 km at a top speed of about Mach 6, reports Yonhap news Agency.
Kim also made “sharp criticism of inattention, onlooking and chronic attitude getting prevalent among officials, and violation of the rules of the emergency anti-epidemic work as this work takes on a protracted character”.
Kim declared in December an end to moratoriums on nuclear and ballistic missile tests, and Pyongyang has repeatedly said it has no intention to continue talks unless Washington drops what it describes as “hostile” policies toward the North.
The moves included re-entering areas of the North that it had withdrawn from as part of inter-Korean projects, restoring guard posts in the Demilitarized Zone that forms the border, and stepping up exercises.
A spokesman for the general staff of the North Korean People’s Army said troops would be sent to “resume all kinds of regular military exercises” at the two sites. Both projects have been closed for several years, but were once symbols of inter-Korean unity that many hoped would be strengthened as cross-border ties improved.
The two zones are sites of long-shuttered joint inter-Korean projects: Southern tourists visited the scenic Mount Kumgang until a North Korean soldier in 2008 shot dead a woman who strayed off the path.
