US VP Pence says Washington to announce new, tough sanctions on North Korea

[chahlley18]

                                 (World Today Wednesday 7 February 2018)

US VP Pence says Washington to announce new, tough sanctions on N Korea

US Vice President Mike Pence is greeted by Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Mr Pence says

Washington will unveil its toughest ever economic sanctions on North Korea as part of a push to get

Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear and missile programmes. Photo: Reuters

Updated 07 February, 2018

TOKYO — United States Vice President Mike Pence said on Wednesday (Feb 7) that Washington would soon unveil its toughest ever economic sanctions on North Korea as part of a push to get Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear and missile programmes while pledging to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with Japan and other allies.

Speaking in Tokyo on his way to the Winter Olympics in South Korea, Mr Pence promised the US and its allies, including Japan, would keep maximum pressure on Pyongyang until it took steps toward “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation”.

“To that end, I’m announcing today the United States of America will soon unveil the toughest and most aggressive round of economic sanctions on North Korea ever,” he said after meeting with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

“And we will continue to isolate North Korea until it abandons its nuclear and ballistic missile programme once and for all,”

Following talks that showcased the US-Japan security alliance, Mr Abe said the two had agreed they could “never accept a nuclear-armed North Korea” while Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the world “must not be fooled by North Korea’s ‘smile diplomacy’.”

Mr Pence reiterated Washington’s stance that “all options are on the table” to deal with North Korea.

“We will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Japan, the people of South Korea and our allies and partners across the region until we achieve the global objective of the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula,” he said, while describing North Korea as the “most tyrannical and oppressive regime on the planet.”

Mr Pence will leave for South Korea on Thursday to attend the opening of the Winter Olympics on Friday. The event will also be attended by Ms Kim Yo-jong, the 28-year-old sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Mr Pence has stopped short of ruling out the prospect of meeting senior North Korean officials but President Donald Trump has cast doubt on US negotiations with Pyongyang any time soon.

The White House has also cautioned against reading too much into remarks Mr Pence made en route to Japan.

Mr Pence said before arriving his message to the North was clear: Washington and its allies would keep pressing Pyongyang to give up its missile and nuclear programmes.

“... my message — whatever the setting, whoever is present — will be the same. And that is that North Korea must once and for all abandon its nuclear weapons programme and ballistic missile ambitions,” he told reporters during the flight to Japan.

Mr Pence on Wednesday also warned against allowing North Korea, which has sent a team to the Winter Games, to use the Olympics for propaganda.

“We will not allow North Korea to hide behind the Olympic banner the reality that they enslave their people and threaten the wider region,” he said.

North Korea test-fired ballistic missiles over Japan last year, as well as a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile that climbed to an altitude of more than 4,000km before splashing into the sea within Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

Concern about North Korea is pushing Japan to update its missile defence.

Besides extending the range and increasing the accuracy of its Patriot system, it will add two US-made ground-based Aegis radar stations and interceptors and plans to add to its arsenal air-fired cruise missiles that can strike North Korean missile sites.

Earlier, Mr Pence visited a Japanese Patriot PAC-3 missile battery, Japan’s last line of defence against any possible North Korean missile strike. REUTERS

N.Korean leader's sister to visit S.Korea for winter Olympics

SEOUL — North Korean leader Kim Jong-un named his sister to represent Pyongyang at the Winter Olympics in South Korea, a historic visit that raises the drama as world leaders including United States Vice President Mike Pence gather for the event.

Ms Kim Yo-jong — promoted by her brother last year to the ruling party’s political wing — would be the Kim’s dynasty’s first official representative to set foot in the south.

She plans to attend the Friday (Feb 9) opening ceremony for the Winter Games in South Korea’s alpine town of Pyeongchang, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said on Wednesday.

Her inclusion in the delegation is “meaningful” as she is not only the sister of the country’s leader but has a significant position as a senior official of the ruling Workers’ Party, the South’s presidential Blue House said.

“It shows the North’s resolve to defuse tension on the Korean peninsula,” Blue House spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told a news briefing.

But Ms Kim Yo-jong presence also serves a propaganda purpose for the North, stealing the spotlight from South Korea and putting more pressure on the alliance between Washington and Seoul.

Complicating the issue is the fact that Ms Kim Yo-jong is subject to US sanctions for heading the nation’s propaganda department.

Mr Koh Yu-hwan, who teaches North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul, said Ms Kim Yo-jong would likely carry a message from her brother to South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

This “is the clearest-ever sign that his intention to recover the inter-Korean relations is strong and he wants to show it to the world,” said Mr Koh, who heads the advisory group for the presidential National Security Council.

“North Korea has been trying to form this all-Koreans versus the US rivalry, which the US would feel uncomfortable with.”

Believed to be in her late 20s, Ms Kim Yo-jong shares the same mother as the North Korean leader. Their mother, Ko Yong-hui, was the fourth partner of former North Korean Leader Kim Jong-il.
The pair grew up together in the capital of Pyongyang and attended the same Swiss boarding school, the Yonhap News Agency has reported.

Ms Kim Yo-jong’s promotion last year brought her closer to the centre of power in the isolated state.

She has appeared prominently and is seen as the most influential woman along with Kim Jong-un’s wife, Ri Sol-ju, in a country where family ties mean more than any title or rank. AGENCIES