Pyongyang may once again feel it needs to up the ante.

Two months of shrill threats following the North’s nuclear test in February appeared at times to drag the Korean peninsula close to war as its young leader celebrated a year in power with a fusillade of verbal aggression that has now died down.

North Korea has made it clear it will not talk unless its right to a nuclear deterrent – its “treasured sword” – is recognised by the United States, while Washington insists any talks would be conditional on denuclearisation.

That may lead to Pyongyang staging a new long-range rocket launch – which critics say is designed to prove missile technology – or a fourth nuclear test, or a small-scale military confrontation with South Korea in a bid to force talks and perhaps split Seoul from Washington.

“The difference in positions between the United States and North Korea is greater than ever,” said Chun Yung-woo, South Korea’s former national security advisor who left office in February and took part in framing U.N. sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear test that month.

Chun took part in meetings with North Korean negotiators as part of “six-party talks”, a series that ran from 2003 among the two Koreas, China, the United States, Japan and Russia that were aimed at stemming the North’s progress towards a nuclear bomb. He participated in talks in 2006 and in 2008, the last round.

The North has said it wants the United States to sign a formal peace treaty formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War, an end to U.N. sanctions and a pledge from Washington and Seoul not to attack it, as well as nuclear recognition.

“It has become much more difficult to seek common ground and find the right conditions for talks,” said Chun, referring to the preconditions set out by Pyongyang.

North Korea has a long history of spurning engagement and trust-building measures. During the six-party talks, it agreed to abandon all of its nuclear weapons programmes in 2005, only to stage nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 as well as this year.

As recently as last year, it said it would allow nuclear inspectors back into the country, not launch any long-range rockets and go back to talks in exchange for U.S. food aid.

Just a few weeks later as Kim Jong-un formally took power, it undertook another rocket launch, scuppering the deal.

The lack of trust and verification means that once bitten, President Barack Obama is unlikely to fall for a second North Korean ploy, especially after crude propaganda films depicted the United States in flames from a North Korean attack.

“Because it is North Korea, the decision goes all the way to the Oval Office and I just don’t see President Obama wanting to make any investment in this,” said Victor Cha, formerly President George W. Bush’s top advisor on North Korean affairs.

CHINA CARD?

Beijing is North Korea’s one ally and could provide a route back into talks, although it too has expressed its frustration with the North’s young leader.

When Kim Jong-un took office, there were hopes he would break with his father’s push for nuclear weapons and embark on Chinese-style economic reforms.

But a year later, the young leader has still not paid a visit to Beijing. And instead of reforming, he has spent the past year purging the military and shuffling his close advisors. He has now staged two long-range rocket launches and one nuclear test.

“China is not very happy with Kim Jong-un for creating trouble,” a source with close ties to Pyongyang and Beijing said.

“Kim Jong-un has been testing his control over the military through mobilisation, but he overdid it.”

Despite Beijing’s displeasure, the young Kim may feel he has little more to lose.

Most analysts say that despite agreeing to sanctions on North Korea after February’s nuclear test, Beijing will not economically strangle a client state that provides a buffer between it and U.S. forces stationed in South Korea.

South Korea’s new President Park Geun-hye will meet Obama in Washington on May 7, providing the North with something it could use as another leverage point for a missile launch, nuclear test or other show of military strength.

North Korea carried out its February nuclear test just as Park was about to take office and as new U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry took up his post. The test also came at around the time of leadership transitions in Tokyo and Beijing.

“The reason things calmed down over the past 10 days or so … was not bluster fatigue setting in, or not deciding strategically to tone things down now after having been on the rampage for so long, but more to catch their adversaries off their guard,” said Sung-Yoon Lee, Professor of Korean Studies at the Fletcher School at Tufts University in the United States.

(Additional reporting by Benjamin Kang Lim in BEIJING; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Mark Bendeich)

Pyongyang may once again feel it needs to up the ante.

Two months of shrill threats following the North’s nuclear test in February appeared at times to drag the Korean peninsula close to war as its young leader celebrated a year in power with a fusillade of verbal aggression that has now died down.

North Korea has made it clear it will not talk unless its right to a nuclear deterrent – its “treasured sword” – is recognized by the United States, while Washington insists any talks would be conditional on denuclearization.

That may lead to Pyongyang staging a new long-range rocket launch – which critics say is designed to prove missile technology – or a fourth nuclear test, or a small-scale military confrontation with South Korea in a bid to force talks and perhaps split Seoul from Washington.

“The difference in positions between the United States and North Korea is greater than ever,” said Chun Yung-woo, South Korea’s former national security advisor who left office in February and took part in framing U.N. sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear test that month.

Chun took part in meetings with North Korean negotiators as part of “six-party talks”, a series that ran from 2003 among the two Koreas, China, the United States, Japan and Russia that were aimed at stemming the North’s progress towards a nuclear bomb. He participated in talks in 2006 and in 2008, the last round.

The North has said it wants the United States to sign a formal peace treaty formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War, an end to U.N. sanctions and a pledge from Washington and Seoul not to attack it, as well as nuclear recognition.

“It has become much more difficult to seek common ground and find the right conditions for talks,” said Chun, referring to the preconditions set out by Pyongyang.

North Korea has a long history of spurning engagement and trust-building measures. During the six-party talks, it agreed to abandon all of its nuclear weapons programs in 2005, only to stage nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 as well as this year.

As recently as last year, it said it would allow nuclear inspectors back into the country, not launch any long-range rockets and go back to talks in exchange for U.S. food aid.

Just a few weeks later as Kim Jong-un formally took power, it undertook another rocket launch, scuppering the deal.

The lack of trust and verification means that once bitten, President Barack Obama is unlikely to fall for a second North Korean ploy, especially after crude propaganda films depicted the United States in flames from a North Korean attack.

“Because it is North Korea, the decision goes all the way to the Oval Office and I just don’t see President Obama wanting to make any investment in this,” said Victor Cha, formerly President George W. Bush’s top advisor on North Korean affairs.

CHINA CARD?

Beijing is North Korea’s one ally and could provide a route back into talks, although it too has expressed its frustration with the North’s young leader.

When Kim Jong-un took office, there were hopes he would break with his father’s push for nuclear weapons and embark on Chinese-style economic reforms.

But a year later, the young leader has still not paid a visit to Beijing. And instead of reforming, he has spent the past year purging the military and shuffling his close advisors. He has now staged two long-range rocket launches and one nuclear test.

“China is not very happy with Kim Jong-un for creating trouble,” a source with close ties to Pyongyang and Beijing said.

“Kim Jong-un has been testing his control over the military through mobilization, but he overdid it.”

Despite Beijing’s displeasure, the young Kim may feel he has little more to lose.

Most analysts say that despite agreeing to sanctions on North Korea after February’s nuclear test, Beijing will not economically strangle a client state that provides a buffer between it and U.S. forces stationed in South Korea.

South Korea’s new President Park Geun-hye will meet Obama in Washington on May 7, providing the North with something it could use as another leverage point for a missile launch, nuclear test or other show of military strength.

North Korea carried out its February nuclear test just as Park was about to take office and as new U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry took up his post. The test also came at around the time of leadership transitions in Tokyo and Beijing.

“The reason things calmed down over the past 10 days or so … was not bluster fatigue setting in, or not deciding strategically to tone things down now after having been on the rampage for so long, but more to catch their adversaries off their guard,” said Sung-Yoon Lee, Professor of Korean Studies at the Fletcher School at Tufts University in the United States.

(Additional reporting by Benjamin Kang Lim in BEIJING; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Mark Bendeich)

The United States has also offered talks, but on the pre-condition that North Korea abandons its nuclear weapons ambitions. North Korea deems its nuclear arms a “treasured sword” and has vowed never to give them up.

The North has threatened for weeks to attack the United States, South Korea and Japan since new U.N. sanctions were imposed in response to its latest nuclear arms test in February.

South Korea’s Defence Ministry said it remained on guard against a possible new missile launch to coincide with the Day of the Sun, the date state founder Kim Il-Sung was born. But officials discounted speculation that the North would proceed with a launch or a new nuclear test on the anniversary itself.

“North Korea is not believed to have launched a missile on the occasion of the Day of the Sun, of which today’s is the 101st,” ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told a briefing.

“But the military is not easing up on its vigilance on the activities of the North’s military with the view that they can conduct a provocation at any time.”

Kim Il-Sung was born in 1912 and led his country from its founding in 1948, through the 1950-53 Korean War and until he died in 1994. His son, Kim Jong-il, then took over.

The South Korean Unification Ministry, which oversees relations with the North, said it was “regrettable” that the North had rejected an offer of talks, made last week by President Park Geun-hye. It said the offer would remain on the table.

Missile launches and nuclear tests by North Korea are both banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions, that were expanded after its third nuclear test, in February.

The aim of the North’s aggressive acts, analysts say, is to bolster the leadership of Kim Jong-un, 30, the grandson of the reclusive state’s founder, or to force the United States to hold talks with the North.

THIRD IN FAMILY DYNASTY

The third Kim to rule in Pyongyang attended a midnight celebration of his father and grandfather’s rule with top officials, including his kingmaker uncle Jang Song-thaek and the country’s top generals.

In Tokyo, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was meeting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe after making a weekend offer to hold talks with the North if it abandoned its nuclear weapons program.

Japan also said it was willing for talks with North Korea if Pyongyang took steps toward de-nuclearisation.

Kerry’s trip to South Korea, China and Japan was aimed at reassuring its allies and putting pressure on Beijing to act decisively to implement the U.N. sanctions.

Kerry said he believes China, the North’s sole economic and political benefactor, should put “some teeth” in efforts to persuade Pyongyang to alter its policies.

The Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, warned on Monday that tensions could get out of control.

“Bad things will always happen if a bowstring is drawn for too long,” the paper wrote in a commentary.

“It does not matter if it is intentional or accidental, even the smallest thing could cause the situation to change rapidly and perhaps get totally out of control.”

If matters did go out of control, it said, “no party will be able to stand on the side”.

North Korea has repeatedly stressed that it fears the United States wants to invade it and has manipulated the United Nations to weaken it. At the weekend, the North rejected the overture by new South Korean President Park as a “cunning” ploy.

“We will expand in quantity our nuclear weapons capability, which is the treasure of a unified Korea … that we would never barter at any price,” Kim Yong-nam, North Korea’s titular head of state, told a gathering of officials and service personnel applauding the achievements of Kim Il-Sung.

Kim Il-Sung’s birthday is usually marked with a mass parade to showcase the North’s military might. In 2012, following the death of his father, Kim Jong-un made a public speech, the first in living memory for a North Korean leader.

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed and Kiyoshi Takenaka in TOKYO, Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by Ron Popeski; Editing by Robert Birsel and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

The North has threatened for weeks to attack the United States, South Korea and Japan since new U.N. sanctions were imposed in response to its latest nuclear arms test in February.

Speculation has mounted of a new missile launch or nuclear test in a bid to either force Washington to hold talks with Pyongyang or to shore up the leadership of Kim Jong-un, the grandson of the reclusive state’s founder.

The third Kim to rule in Pyongyang attended a midnight celebration of his father and grandfather’s rule with top officials including his kingmaker uncle Jang Song-thaek and the country’s top generals.

In Tokyo on Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry again offered talks if North Korea abandoned its nuclear weapons programme, which Pyongyang describes at its “treasured” sword.

Kerry’s trip to South Korea, China and Japan was aimed at reassuring its allies and putting pressure on Beijing to act decisively to implement the United Nations sanctions.

North Korea has repeatedly stressed that it fears Washington wants to invade it and has manipulated the United Nations to weaken it. At the weekend, Pyongyang rejected an overture by new South Korean President Park Geun-hye as a “cunning” ploy.

“We will expand in quantity our nuclear weapons capability, which is the treasure of a unified Korea … that we would never barter at any price,” Kim Young-nam, North Korea’s titular head of state, told a gathering of officials and service personnel applauding the achievements of Kim Il-Sung.

Kim Il-Sung’s birthday is usually marked with a mass parade to showcase the North’s military might. In 2012, following the death of his father, the 30-year old Kim Jong-un made a public speech, the first in living memory for a North Korean leader.

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed and Kiyoshi Takenaka in TOKYO)

New leaders in Seoul, Beijing and most importantly, an untested 30-year-old in Pyongyang who has to prove he is capable of facing down a perceived threat from the United States, have raised the stakes in a month-long standoff that risks flaring into a conflict.

“It seems that Kim Jong-un is in the driving seat of a train that has been taken on a joyride,” said Lee Min-yong, North Korea expert at Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul.

With the looming April 15 celebrations to commemorate the birthday of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current ruler, and large chunks of North Korea’s peasant army due to head to farms for spring planting, the crisis may have been lurching to a close before the American bombers’ flights on Thursday.

Instead, pictures of Kim Jong-un released by the state-owned KCNA news agency showed him sketching out a response to the stealth bomber flights and depicted the possible paths of North Korean missile attacks on U.S. bases in the Pacific and on the United States itself.

The missile threat to U.S. bases in the Pacific and certainly to the continental United States may be overstated, given the untested nature of North Korea’s longer-range missiles. But the risk to South Korea is real.

Seoul is just over 40 km (25 miles) from the massed artillery and battle-proven short-range Scud missiles placed north of the demilitarised zone that separates the two sides. And North Korea has proved, as recently as 2010, that it is capable of launching strikes on the South.

In that year, it was charged with sinking a South Korean naval vessel and shelled an island close to the maritime border.

A study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies says North Korea keeps 80 percent of its estimated firepower within 100 km (60 miles) of the zone. This includes approximately 700,000 troops, 8,000 artillery systems and 2,000 tanks, it said.

STAMP OUT LIKE AN ANT

Deng Yuwen, deputy editor at the Study Times, a newspaper published by China’s Central Party School which trains rising officials, believes neither side intends to wage a full-scale war in which the “Americans will stamp him (Kim) out like an ant and crush him” but says the risk of conflict has risen.

“This doesn’t rule out the risk of misfiring, this kind of accident cannot be ruled out,” Deng said.

While Pyongyang has a new Kim in charge, South Korean President Park Geun-hye and China’s new leader Xi Jinping took office just this year.

Before becoming president, Park pledged engagement in return for the North giving up its nuclear ambitions. Just a week before she took office, Pyongyang literally exploded those policies when it carried out its third nuclear test on February 12.

While Park has no option but to sit and wait, China’s Xi will have to navigate a tricky path that seeks to restrain and punish the North, as it did by backing United Nations sanctions imposed after the test. But, as the North’s only major ally and its supplier of food and fuel, Beijing will not go too far.

“If the Chinese take too stringent measures, the situation in North Korea will be even more unstable,” said Deng.

However, the script of the Korean Peninsula being on the verge of widespread conflict has been played out many times after the 1950-53 war. American B-52 bombers were used to pressure the North in the 1970s.

In 1976, a U.S. decision to remove a tree in the demilitarised zone that separates the two Koreas saw two American soldiers bludgeoned to death with axe handles. This was followed by a show of military force that included the bombers.

That incident passed without major conflict even though North Korea subsequently fired on an American helicopter.

North Korea’s state media has a long history of antagonistic rhetoric, threatening to turn Seoul into a “sea of fire” and dubbing one South Korean President a “rat-bastard” .

Even its recent repudiation of the armistice agreement that ended the 1950-53 Korean War has happened before.

FARM SUPPORT

If it was not for the American bomber flights, North Korea may have been willing to tone down tensions around now because of the spring thaw. This is the time of year its peasant army helps with planting, a key task in a country that suffers from perennial food shortages.

While that doesn’t affect missile units and the core elite troops, experts in Seoul say that large parts of the North’s 1.2 million-strong armed forces spend about a month on the farm from mid-April onwards.

“The soldiers are sent for ‘farm support.’ They stay on the farms and engage in planting like all the other farming population. They usually stay until around May 20 and leave once they are done,” said Ahn Chan-il, a high-ranking North Korean defector who now lives in Seoul.

Washington’s bomber flights appear to have been aimed at reassuring key allies in South Korea and Japan that it stood beside them amid the North’s sabre-rattling.

President Barack Obama, who closely controls all major national security decision-making within the White House, has shown himself to be reluctant to involve the United States in foreign conflicts.

He has stayed largely on the sidelines in the Syrian civil war, minimized U.S. involvement in Libya and rebuffed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to press him for military action against Iran’a nuclear program.

New Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was wounded in combat in a earlier war in Asia, in Vietnam, and has spoken of the need to use military force only as a last resort.

“From the U.S. point of view, it is appropriate to reassure South Korea of U.S. continuing commitment, especially in these times where some people may doubt that commitment due to the financial crisis,” said Denny Roy, an expert on Asia-Pacific security at the East-West Center thinktank In Hawaii.

(Additional reporting by Sui-Lee Wee in BEIJING; Jack Kim and Christine Kim in SEOUL; Warren Strobel and Paul Eckert in WASHINGTON; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed off on the order at a
midnight meeting of top generals and “judged the time has come
to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the
prevailing situation”, the official KCNA news agency said.

The North has an arsenal of Soviet-era short-range Scud
missiles that can hit South Korea and have been proven, but its
longer-range Nodong and Musudan missiles that could in theory
hit U.S. Pacific bases are untested.

On Thursday, the United States flew two radar-evading B-2
Spirit bombers on practice runs over South Korea, responding to
a series of North Korean threats. They flew from the United
States and back in what appeared to be the first exercise of its
kind, designed to show America’s ability to conduct long-range,
precision strikes “quickly and at will”, the U.S. military said.

The news of Kim’s response was unusually swift.

“He finally signed the plan on technical preparations of
strategic rockets of the KPA (Korean People’s Army), ordering
them to be on standby for fire so that they may strike any time
the U.S. mainland, its military bases in the operational
theaters in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in
South Korea,” KCNA said.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported there had been
additional troop and vehicle movements at the North’s mid- and
long-range missile sites, indicating they may be ready to fire.

“Sharply increased movements of vehicles and soldiers have
been detected recently at North Korea’s mid and long-range
missile sites,” Yonhap quoted a South Korean military source as
saying.

It was impossible to verify the report which did not specify
a time frame, although South Korea’s Defense Ministry said on
Friday that it was watching shorter-range Scud missile sites
closes as well as Nodong and Musudan missile batteries.

The North has launched a daily barrage of threats since
early this month when the United States and the South, allies in
the 1950-53 Korean War, began routine military drills.

The South and the United States have said the drills are
purely defensive in nature and that no incident has taken place
in the decades they have been conducted in various forms.

The United States also flew B-52 bombers over South Korea
earlier this week.

The North has put its military on highest readiness to fight
what it says are hostile forces conducting war drills. Its young
leader has previously given “final orders” for its military to
wage revolutionary war with the South.

ECONOMIC ZONE

Despite the tide of hostile rhetoric from Pyongyang, it has
kept open a joint economic zone with the South which generates
$2 billion a year in trade, money the impoverished state can
ill-afford to lose.

Pyongyang has also cancelled an armistice agreement with the
United States that ended the Korean War and cut all
communications hotlines with U.S. forces, the United Nations and
South Korea.

“The North Koreans have to understand that what they’re
doing is very dangerous,” U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel
told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday.

“We must make clear that these provocations by the North are
taken by us very seriously and we’ll respond to that.”

The U.S. military said that its B-2 bombers had flown more
than 6,500 miles (10,461 km) to stage a trial bombing raid from
their bases in Missouri as part of the Foal Eagle war drills
being held with South Korea.

The bombers dropped inert munitions on the Jik Do Range, in
South Korea, and then returned to the continental United States
in a single, continuous mission, the military said.

Thursday’s drill was the first time B-2s flew round-trip
from the mainland United States over South Korea and dropped
inert munitions, a Pentagon spokeswoman said.

Victor Cha, a North Korea expert at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies, said the drill fitted within the
context of ramped-up efforts by the Pentagon to deter the North
from acting upon any of its threats.

Asked whether he thought the latest moves could further
aggravate tensions on the peninsula, Cha, a former White House
official, said: “I don’t think the situation can get any more
aggravated than it already is.”

South Korea denied suggestions on Friday that the bomber
drills contained an implicit threat of attack on the North.

“There is no entity on the earth who will strike an attack
on North Korea or expressed their wishes to do so,” a spokesman
for the South’s Unification Ministry said.

Despite the shrill rhetoric from Pyongyang, few believe
North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea, will risk starting a full-out war.

Still, Hagel, who on March 15 announced he was bolstering
missile defenses over the growing North Korea threat, said all
of the provocations by the North had to be taken seriously.

“Their very provocative actions and belligerent tone, it has
ratcheted up the danger and we have to understand that reality,”
Hagel said, renewing a warning that the U.S. military was ready
for “any eventuality” on the peninsula.

North Korea conducted a third nuclear weapons test in
February in breach of U.N. sanctions and despite warnings from
China, its one major diplomatic ally.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander in Washington; Editing
by Warren Strobel, Paul Simao and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed off on the order at a midnight meeting of top generals and “judged the time has come to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the prevailing situation”, official KCNA news agency said.

On Thursday, the United States flew two radar-evading B-2 Spirit bombers on practice runs over South Korea, responding to a series of North Korean threats. They flew from the United States and back in what appeared to be the first exercise of its kind, designed to show America’s ability to conduct long-range, precision strikes “quickly and at will”, the U.S. military said.

The news of Kim’s response was unusually swift.

“He finally signed the plan on technical preparations of strategic rockets of the KPA (Korean People’s Army), ordering them to be on standby for fire so that they may strike any time the U.S. mainland, its military bases in the operational theatres in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in South Korea,” KCNA said.

The North has an arsenal of Soviet-era Scud missiles that can hit South Korea, but its longer-range missiles are untested. Independent assessments of its missile capability suggest it may have theoretical capacity to hit U.S. bases in Japan and Guam.

The North has launched a daily barrage of threats since early this month when the United States and the South, allies in the 1950-53 Korean War, began routine military drills.

The South and the United States have said the drills are purely defensive in nature and that no incident has taken place in the decades they have been conducted in various forms.

The United States also flew B-52 bombers over South Korea earlier this week.

The North has put its military on highest readiness to fight what it says are hostile forces conducting war drills. Its young leader has previously given “final orders” for its military to wage revolutionary war with the South.

Despite the tide of hostile rhetoric from Pyongyang, it has kept open a joint economic zone with the South which generates $2 billion a year in trade, money the impoverished state can ill-afford to lose.

Pyongyang has also cancelled an armistice agreement with the United States that ended the Korean War and cut all communications hotlines with U.S. forces, the United Nations and South Korea.

U.S. SAYS NORTH ON DANGEROUS PATH

“The North Koreans have to understand that what they’re doing is very dangerous,” U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon.

“We must make clear that these provocations by the North are taken by us very seriously and we’ll respond to that.”

The U.S. military said that its B-2 bombers had flown more than 6,500 miles (10,461 km) to stage a trial bombing raid from their bases in Missouri as part of the Foal Eagle war drills being held with South Korea.

The bombers dropped inert munitions on the Jik Do Range, in South Korea, and then returned to the continental United States in a single, continuous mission, the military said.

Thursday’s drill was the first time B-2s flew round-trip from the mainland United States over South Korea and dropped inert munitions, a Pentagon spokeswoman said.

Victor Cha, a North Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the drill fitted within the context of ramped-up efforts by the Pentagon to deter the North from acting upon any of its threats.

Asked whether he thought the latest moves could further aggravate tensions on the peninsula, Cha, a former White House official, said: “I don’t think the situation can get any more aggravated than it already is.”

South Korea denied suggestions on Friday that the bomber drills contained an implicit threat of attack on the North.

“There is no entity on the earth who will strike an attack on North Korea or expressed their wishes to do so,” a spokesman for the South’s Unification Ministry said.

Despite the shrill rhetoric from Pyongyang, few believe North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, will risk starting a full-out war.

Still, Hagel, who on March 15 announced he was bolstering missile defences over the growing North Korea threat, said all of the provocations by the North had to be taken seriously.

“Their very provocative actions and belligerent tone, it has ratcheted up the danger and we have to understand that reality,” Hagel said, renewing a warning that the U.S. military was ready for “any eventuality” on the peninsula.

North Korea conducted a third nuclear weapons test in February in breach of U.N. sanctions and despite warnings from China, its one major diplomatic ally.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander in Washington; Editing by Warren Strobel, Paul Simao and Mark Bendeich)

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed off on the order at a
midnight meeting of top generals and “judged the time has come
to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the
prevailing situation”, official KCNA news agency said.

On Thursday, the United States flew two radar-evading B-2
Spirit bombers on practice runs over South Korea, responding to
a series of North Korean threats. They flew from the United
States and back in what appeared to be the first exercise of its
kind, designed to show America’s ability to conduct long-range,
precision strikes “quickly and at will”, the U.S. military said.

The news of Kim’s response was unusually swift.

“He finally signed the plan on technical preparations of
strategic rockets of the KPA (Korean People’s Army), ordering
them to be on standby for fire so that they may strike any time
the U.S. mainland, its military bases in the operational
theaters in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in
South Korea,” KCNA said.

The North has an arsenal of Soviet-era Scud missiles that
can hit South Korea, but its longer-range missiles are untested.
Independent assessments of its missile capability suggest it may
have theoretical capacity to hit U.S. bases in Japan and Guam.

The North has launched a daily barrage of threats since
early this month when the United States and the South, allies in
the 1950-53 Korean War, began routine military drills.

The South and the United States have said the drills are
purely defensive in nature and that no incident has taken place
in the decades they have been conducted in various forms.

The United States also flew B-52 bombers over South Korea
earlier this week.

The North has put its military on highest readiness to fight
what it says are hostile forces conducting war drills. Its young
leader has previously given “final orders” for its military to
wage revolutionary war with the South.

Despite the tide of hostile rhetoric from Pyongyang, it has
kept open a joint economic zone with the South which generates
$2 billion a year in trade, money the impoverished state can
ill-afford to lose.

Pyongyang has also cancelled an armistice agreement with the
United States that ended the Korean War and cut all
communications hotlines with U.S. forces, the United Nations and
South Korea.

U.S. SAYS NORTH ON DANGEROUS PATH

“The North Koreans have to understand that what they’re
doing is very dangerous,” U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel
told reporters at the Pentagon.

“We must make clear that these provocations by the North are
taken by us very seriously and we’ll respond to that.”

The U.S. military said that its B-2 bombers had flown more
than 6,500 miles (10,461 km) to stage a trial bombing raid from
their bases in Missouri as part of the Foal Eagle war drills
being held with South Korea.

The bombers dropped inert munitions on the Jik Do Range, in
South Korea, and then returned to the continental United States
in a single, continuous mission, the military said.

Thursday’s drill was the first time B-2s flew round-trip
from the mainland United States over South Korea and dropped
inert munitions, a Pentagon spokeswoman said.

Victor Cha, a North Korea expert at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies, said the drill fitted within the
context of ramped-up efforts by the Pentagon to deter the North
from acting upon any of its threats.

Asked whether he thought the latest moves could further
aggravate tensions on the peninsula, Cha, a former White House
official, said: “I don’t think the situation can get any more
aggravated than it already is.”

South Korea denied suggestions on Friday that the bomber
drills contained an implicit threat of attack on the North.

“There is no entity on the earth who will strike an attack
on North Korea or expressed their wishes to do so,” a spokesman
for the South’s Unification Ministry said.

Despite the shrill rhetoric from Pyongyang, few believe
North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea, will risk starting a full-out war.

Still, Hagel, who on March 15 announced he was bolstering
missile defenses over the growing North Korea threat, said all
of the provocations by the North had to be taken seriously.

“Their very provocative actions and belligerent tone, it has
ratcheted up the danger and we have to understand that reality,”
Hagel said, renewing a warning that the U.S. military was ready
for “any eventuality” on the peninsula.

North Korea conducted a third nuclear weapons test in
February in breach of U.N. sanctions and despite warnings from
China, its one major diplomatic ally.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander in Washington; Editing
by Warren Strobel, Paul Simao and Mark Bendeich)

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed off on the order at a midnight meeting of top generals and “judged the time has come to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the prevailing situation”, official KCNA news agency said.

On Thursday, the United States flew two radar-evading B-2 Spirit bombers on practice runs over South Korea, responding to a series of North Korean threats. They flew from the United States and back in what appeared to be the first exercise of its kind, designed to show America’s ability to conduct long-range, precision strikes “quickly and at will”, the U.S. military said.

The news of Kim’s response was unusually swift.

“He finally signed the plan on technical preparations of strategic rockets of the KPA, ordering them to be standby for fire so that they may strike any time the U.S. mainland, its military bases in the operational theaters in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in south Korea,” KCNA said.

The North has an arsenal of Soviet-era Scud missiles that can hit South Korea, but its longer-range missiles are untested. Independent assessments of its missile capability suggest it may have theoretical capacity to hit U.S. bases in Japan and Guam.

The North has launched a daily barrage of threats since early this month when the United States and the South, allies in the 1950-53 Korean War, began routine military drills.

The South and the United States have said the drills are purely defensive in nature and that no incident has taken place in the decades they have been conducted in various forms.

The United States also flew B-52 bombers over South Korea earlier this week.

The North has put its military on highest readiness to fight what it says are hostile forces conducting war drills. Its young leader has previously given “final orders” for its military to wage revolutionary war with the South.

Despite the tide of hostile rhetoric from Pyongyang, it has kept open a joint economic zone with the South which generates $2 billion a year in trade, money the impoverished state can ill-afford to lose.

Pyongyang has also canceled an armistice agreement with the United States that ended the Korean War and cut all communications hotlines with U.S. forces, the United Nations and South Korea.

U.S. SAYS NORTH ON DANGEROUS PATH

“The North Koreans have to understand that what they’re doing is very dangerous,” U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon.

“We must make clear that these provocations by the North are taken by us very seriously and we’ll respond to that.”

The U.S. military said that its B-2 bombers had flown more than 6,500 miles to stage a trial bombing raid from their bases in Missouri as part of the Foal Eagle war drills being held with South Korea.

The bombers dropped inert munitions on the Jik Do Range, in South Korea, and then returned to the continental United States in a single, continuous mission, the military said.

Thursday’s drill was the first time B-2s flew round-trip from the mainland United States over South Korea and dropped inert munitions, a Pentagon spokeswoman said.

Victor Cha, a North Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the drill fit within the context of ramped efforts by the Pentagon to deter the North from acting upon any of its threats.

Asked whether he thought the latest moves could further aggravate tensions on the peninsula, Cha, a former White House official, said: “I don’t think the situation can get any more aggravated than it already is.”

Despite the shrill rhetoric from Pyongyang, few believe North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, will risk starting a full-out war.

Still, Hagel, who on March 15 announced he was bolstering missile defenses over the growing North Korea threat, said all of the provocations by the North had to be taken seriously.

“Their very provocative actions and belligerent tone, it has ratcheted up the danger and we have to understand that reality,” Hagel said, renewing a warning that the U.S. military was ready for “any eventuality” on the peninsula.

North Korea conducted a third nuclear weapons test in February in breach of U.N. sanctions and despite warnings from China, its one major diplomatic ally.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander in Washington; Editing by Warren Strobel, Paul Simao and Mark Bendeich)

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed off on the order at a midnight meeting of top generals and “judged the time has come to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the prevailing situation”, official KCNA news agency said.

On Thursday, the United States flew two radar-evading B-2 Spirit bombers on practice runs over South Korea, responding to a series of North Korean threats. They flew from the United States and back in what appeared to be the first exercise of its kind, designed to show America’s ability to conduct long-range, precision strikes “quickly and at will”, the U.S. military said.

The news of Kim’s response was unusually swift.

“He finally signed the plan on technical preparations of strategic rockets of the KPA, ordering them to be standby for fire so that they may strike any time the U.S. mainland, its military bases in the operational theaters in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in south Korea,” KCNA said.

The North has an arsenal of Soviet-era Scud missiles that can hit South Korea, but its longer-range missiles are untested. Independent assessments of its missile capability suggest it may have theoretical capacity to hit U.S. bases in Japan and Guam.

The North has launched a daily barrage of threats since early this month when the United States and the South, allies in the 1950-53 Korean War, began routine military drills.

The South and the United States have said the drills are purely defensive in nature and that no incident has taken place in the decades they have been conducted in various forms.

The United States also flew B-52 bombers over South Korea earlier this week.

The North has put its military on highest readiness to fight what it says are hostile forces conducting war drills. Its young leader has previously given “final orders” for its military to wage revolutionary war with the South.

Despite the tide of hostile rhetoric from Pyongyang, it has kept open a joint economic zone with the South which generates $2 billion a year in trade, money the impoverished state can ill-afford to lose.

Pyongyang has also canceled an armistice agreement with the United States that ended the Korean War and cut all communications hotlines with U.S. forces, the United Nations and South Korea.

U.S. SAYS NORTH ON DANGEROUS PATH

“The North Koreans have to understand that what they’re doing is very dangerous,” U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon.

“We must make clear that these provocations by the North are taken by us very seriously and we’ll respond to that.”

The U.S. military said that its B-2 bombers had flown more than 6,500 miles to stage a trial bombing raid from their bases in Missouri as part of the Foal Eagle war drills being held with South Korea.

The bombers dropped inert munitions on the Jik Do Range, in South Korea, and then returned to the continental United States in a single, continuous mission, the military said.

Thursday’s drill was the first time B-2s flew round-trip from the mainland United States over South Korea and dropped inert munitions, a Pentagon spokeswoman said.

Victor Cha, a North Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the drill fit within the context of ramped efforts by the Pentagon to deter the North from acting upon any of its threats.

Asked whether he thought the latest moves could further aggravate tensions on the peninsula, Cha, a former White House official, said: “I don’t think the situation can get any more aggravated than it already is.”

Despite the shrill rhetoric from Pyongyang, few believe North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, will risk starting a full-out war.

Still, Hagel, who on March 15 announced he was bolstering missile defenses over the growing North Korea threat, said all of the provocations by the North had to be taken seriously.

“Their very provocative actions and belligerent tone, it has ratcheted up the danger and we have to understand that reality,” Hagel said, renewing a warning that the U.S. military was ready for “any eventuality” on the peninsula.

North Korea conducted a third nuclear weapons test in February in breach of U.N. sanctions and despite warnings from China, its one major diplomatic ally.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander in Washington; Editing by Warren Strobel, Paul Simao and Mark Bendeich)