SEOUL (Reuters) — North Korea fired a ballistic missile on Friday that flew about 800 km (500 miles) off its east coast into the sea, South Korea's military said, days after fresh U.S. sanctions were imposed on the isolated state.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency said the missile was likely a medium-range Rodong-missile.

The launch comes amid heightened tension on the Korean peninsula with the North remaining defiant in the face of the U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed earlier in the month in response to a nuclear test conducted in January.

The missile was launched from an area near the west coast north of the capital, Pyongyang, flying across the peninsular and into the sea off the east coast early Friday morning, the South's Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

It did not confirm the type of the missile. But 800 km was likely beyond the range of most short-range missiles in the North's arsenal.

North Korea last test fired medium-range missiles in 2014.

The North fired two short-range missiles last week into the sea off its east coast and its leader Kim Jong Un ordered more nuclear weapons test and missile tests to improve attack capability.

North Korea often fires missiles at periods of tension on the Korean peninsula or when it comes under pressure to curb its defiance and abandon its weapons program.

New U.S. sanctions on Pyongyang were issued on Wednesday aiming to expand U.S. blockade against the isolated state by blacklisting individuals and entities that deal with the North's economy.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in Jan. 6 and launched a long-range rocket on Feb. 7 in defiance of existing U.N. Security Council resolutions.

On Wednesday, North Korea's supreme court sentenced a visiting American student to 15 years of hard labor for crimes against the state, a punishment Washington condemned as politically motivated.

Reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park. Editing by Lincoln Feast.

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North Korea fired at least one ballistic missile which flew about 800 km (500 miles) before hitting the sea off its east coast, South Korea's military said on Friday, as the isolated state stepped up its defiance of tough new U.N. and U.S. sanctions.

A U.S. official told Reuters in Washington it appeared to be a medium-range missile fired from a road-mobile launcher. That would mark North Korea's first test of a medium-range missile, capable of reaching Japan, since 2014.

The missile, launched from north of the capital, Pyongyang, flew across the peninsula and into the sea off the east coast early Friday morning, South Korea's Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

It appeared the North may have fired a second missile soon after from the same region, with a projectile disappearing from radar at an altitude of about 17 km, the statement said.

South Korea did not confirm the type of the missiles. But 800 km was likely beyond the range of most short-range missiles in North Korea's arsenal. The North's Rodong missile has an estimated maximum range of 1,300 km, according to the South's defense ministry.

Friday's launch quickly provoked a barrage of criticism and appeals.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang urged North Korea to abide by U.N. resolutions and not do anything to exacerbate tensions.

The U.S. State Department in a statement urged North Korea to focus on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its international commitments and obligations.

Japan lodged a protest with North Korea through its embassy in Beijing, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told parliament.

"Japan strongly demands North Korea to exercise self-restraint and will take all necessary measures, such as warning and surveillance activity, to be able to respond to any situations," Abe said.

South Korea's Unification Ministry said Pyongyang should focus on improving the lives of its people and that provocative actions would help nothing.

NUCLEAR WARHEADS

North Korea often fires missiles during periods of tension on the Korean peninsula or when it comes under pressure to curb its defiance and abandon its weapons programs.

Last week, the North fired two short-range missiles into the sea off its east coast and its leader Kim Jong Un ordered more nuclear weapons tests and missile tests.

That came after North Korean media said the North had miniaturized nuclear warheads to fit on ballistic missiles and quoted Kim as calling upon the military to prepare for a "pre-emptive nuclear strike" against the United States and South Korea.

U.S. President Barack Obama imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Wednesday over its nuclear test and satellite launch. The sanctions freeze North Korean government assets in the United States, bans U.S. exports to, or investment in, North Korea, and expands a U.S. blacklist to anyone - including non-Americans - who deal with North Korea.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 and launched a long-range rocket on Feb. 7 in defiance of existing U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The North has reacted angrily to annual joint military drills by U.S. and South Korean troops that began on March 7, calling the exercises "nuclear war moves" and threatening to wipe out its enemies.

The U.S. and South Korea remain technically at war with the North because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armed truce instead of a peace agreement. Over the last several weeks, the two Koreas have suspended economic ties over the mounting tensions.

South Korea and U.S. officials this month began discussions on deploying the advanced anti-missile Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system to the U.S. military in the South, despite Chinese and Russian objections.

On Wednesday, North Korea's supreme court sentenced a visiting American student to 15 years of hard labor for crimes against the state, a punishment Washington condemned as politically motivated.

 (Additional reporting by Tokyo newsroom, Phil Stewart in Washington and Megha Rajagopalan in Beijing; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

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SEOUL — North Korea claimed Sunday that it could wipe out Manhattan by sending a hydrogen bomb on a ballistic missile to the heart of New York, the latest in a string of brazen threats.

Although there are many reasons to believe that Kim Jong Un's regime is exaggerating its technical capabilities, the near-daily drumbeat of boasts and warnings from Pyongyang underlines North Korea's anger at efforts to thwart its ambitions.

"Our hydrogen bomb is much bigger than the one developed by the Soviet Union," DPRK Today, a state-run outlet that uses the official acronym for North Korea, reported Sunday.

"If this H-bomb were to be mounted on an inter-continental ballistic missile and fall on Manhattan in New York City, all the people there would be killed immediately and the city would burn down to ashes," the report said, citing a nuclear scientist named Cho Hyong Il.

The website is a strange choice for issuing such a proclamation, given that it also carried reports about rabbit farming and domestically made school backpacks.

North Korea's newly developed hydrogen bomb "surpasses our imagination," Cho is quoted as saying, because it is many times as powerful as anything the Soviet Union had.

"The H-bomb developed by the Soviet Union in the past was able to smash windows of buildings 1,000 kms away and the heat was strong enough to cause third-degree burns 100 kms away," the report continued. (A thousand kilometers is about 625 miles; 100 kilometers, 62.5 miles)

Kim in January ordered North Korea's fourth nuclear test and claimed that it was a hydrogen bomb, not a simple atomic one. But most experts are skeptical of the claim, saying the seismic waves caused by the blast were similar to those caused by the North's three previous tests.

Then in February, Kim oversaw the launch of what North Korea said was a rocket that put a satellite into orbit, a move that is widely considered part of a long-range ballistic-missile program.

North Korea has made advances in its intercontinental ballistic-missile program, and experts generally conclude that the United States' West Coast could be in reach but that there has been no suggestion that the North would be able to hit the East Coast.

Many experts are also skeptical of the "miniaturized warhead" that Kim showed off last week during a visit to a nuclear weapons plant.

But Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia nonproliferation program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, warned against dismissing it too soon.

"It does not look like U.S. devices, to be sure, but it is hard to know if aspects of the model are truly implausible or simply that North Korean nuclear weapons look different than their Soviet and American cousins," Lewis wrote in an analysis for 38 North, a website devoted to North Korea. "The size, however, is consistent with my expectations for North Korea."

As international condemnation of the North's acts mounted, culminating this month in the toughest United Nations sanctions against Pyongyang yet, Kim's regime has become increasingly belligerent, firing missiles into the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, and issuing a new threat or denunciation almost every day.

The sanctions coincide with annual spring drills between the U.S. and South Korean militaries, which Pyongyang considers a rehearsal for an invasion. The current exercises are viewed as particularly antagonistic because special forces are practicing "decapitation strikes" on regime leaders and the destruction of nuclear and missile sites.

On Friday, North Korea's state media reported that Kim ordered more nuclear tests, while the North's Korean People's Army warned in a statement Saturday that it would counter the drills by "liberat[ing] the whole of South Korea including Seoul . . . with an ultra-precision blitzkrieg strike of the Korean style."

South Korea's Defense Ministry urged Pyongyang to stop its threats and provocations.

"If the North continues to make provocations despite the stern warnings made by our military, it is inevitable for us to roll out a strict response that may lead to the destruction of the Pyongyang regime," South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, according to the Yonhap News Agency.

(Yoonjung Seo contributed to this report.)

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Day after day, North Korea boasts of new weapons programs developments and unleashes fiery threats to attack rivals South Korea and the United States.

On Friday, for example, the North's state media said it staged its largest-ever long-range artillery drills aimed at bringing the "most miserable doom to the U.S. imperialists and the South Korean puppet group of traitors."

The North's threats are an apparent response to ongoing South Korea-U.S. military drills that it describes as a dress rehearsal for an invasion. If the past is any guide, most of Pyongyang's warlike threats will likely turn out to be empty propaganda and gradually subside when the allies' springtime training ends in late April.

But there is always a small chance that North Korea could launch some kind of surprise attack. Two 2010 assaults blamed on Pyongyang were totally unexpected: the torpedoing of a warship and shelling of a border island that together killed 50 South Koreans. Pyongyang denies responsibility for the torpedoing that occurred when the same South Korea-U.S. drills were under way, though it acknowledged bombarding the island.

Here is a look at North Korea's recent bellicose threats, claims and weapons launches.

Threats of nuclear strikes

At the start of the allies' drills on March 7, North Korea's powerful National Defense Commission, led by absolute leader Kim Jong Un, warned of a "pre-emptive nuclear strike of justice" on Washington and Seoul.

While such rhetoric is relatively common, it intensified as the North furiously reacted to tough U.N. sanctions imposed for its nuclear test and long-range rocket launch earlier this year.

North Korea is known to have a handful of rudimentary atomic bombs. But analysts say it is highly unlikely the North would actually carry out its threat of nuclear attacks due to concerns of massive retaliation by the superior U.S. and South Korean militaries that would probably end Kim's rule.

Last week, state media said Kim ordered tests of a nuclear warhead explosion and ballistic missiles capable of warheads, but there are no signs tests have been carried out.

Weapons launches

In recent weeks, North Korea has fired a slew of short-range missiles and artillery shells into the sea in an apparent response to the South Korea-U.S. drills. Last Friday, it launched a medium-range ballistic missile into waters off its east coast for the first time since 2014.

North Korea routinely tests short-range missiles and artillery systems but it tends to do more launches in times of tension with the outside world.

Among the weapons tested this month was what North Korea called a new large-caliber artillery rocket system, which experts believe could reach Seoul, a metropolitan area of 10 million. South Korean experts believe the new launchers can fire 300-millimeter rockets up to 200 kilometers (125 miles).

Disclosing nuclear capability

North Korea has gone to great lengths to tout its alleged advancements in nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

The North's official media on March 9 showed a smiling Kim posing with nuclear scientists beside what appeared to be a model trigger device of a nuclear warhead. Kim declared warheads had been miniaturized for use on ballistic missiles, according to the report.

Days later, the North claimed to have mastered a re-entry technology that is designed to protect a warhead from extreme heat and other challenges when it returns to the atmosphere from space following a missile launch.

The miniaturization and re-entry technologies are among the last major hurdles that foreign experts say the North must tackle to accomplish its goal of manufacturing a nuclear-armed missile that can reach the continental U.S.

South Korean defense officials, however, say there is no proof that North Korea has a functioning intercontinental ballistic missile.

On Thursday, North Korea created a stir by claiming it had successfully conducted a high-powered, solid-fuel rocket engine test. Solid-fuel missiles are generally harder to detect before they are launched than liquid-fuel missiles. South Korea said it needs to analyze the North's claim.

Sea of fire

When North Korea threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of flames" in 1994, alarmed Seoul residents rushed to stock up on instant noodles and other supplies. But after repeated similar threats that were never carried out, most South Koreans now react with indifference.

In recent weeks, North Korea again fired verbal salvos, saying it will "liberate" South Korea, launch attacks with the new artillery rockets to "instantly destroy" Seoul's presidential palace and turn the city into a "sea of flames."

While South Korea's president ordered a heightened security posture, the largely unflustered public has been more preoccupied with political squabbling ahead of next month's parliamentary elections, the start of baseball season and the new hit soap opera, "Descendants of the Sun."

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SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea test fired a short-range missile on its east coast on Tuesday, South Korea's military said, amid heightened tension over the isolated country's nuclear and rocket programs.

The missile was fired from near the North Korean coastal town of Wonsan at 5.40 p.m. (0840 GMT) and flew northeast for about 200 km and then "made contact" with the mainland, South Korea's military said in a statement.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has presided over a string of short-range missile launches in recent weeks in what North Korean state media has characterized as a response to U.N. sanctions imposed for its fourth nuclear test in January.

U.S. President Barack Obama will meet South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday to discuss North Korea's nuclear program, the White House said on Monday.

The meeting on the sidelines of a Nuclear Security Summit in Washington will take place the same day Obama talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. 

(Reporting by Rebecca Jang and Ju-min Park; Wrting by James Pearson; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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GENEVA (Reuters) - North Korea will pursue its nuclear and ballistic missile program in defiance of the United States and its allies, a top Pyongyang envoy told Reuters on Friday, saying there is now a state of "semi-war" on the divided peninsula.

So Se Pyong, North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, denounced huge joint US-South Korean military exercises taking place which he said were aimed at "decapitation of the supreme leadership of the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea)."

North Korea conducted a fourth nuclear test in January and launched a long-range rocket in February. The South Korean military said on Friday that North Korea had fired a missile into the sea off its east coast.

"If the United States continues, then we have to make the counter-measures also. So we have to develop, and we have to make more deterrence, nuclear deterrence," So, who is also North Korea's envoy to the U.N.-sponsored Conference on Disarmament, said in an interview.

US President Barack Obama joined South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday in vowing to ramp up pressure on North Korea in response to its recent nuclear and missile tests. The three leaders recommitted their countries to each others' defense and warned they could take further steps to counter threats from Pyongyang.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday also called for dialogue to resolve the "predicament" on the Korean peninsula during a meeting with Park in Washington, Xinhua news agency said on Friday.

So, asked whether his reclusive country felt pressure from its ally China and other powers, replied: "We are going on our own way. (We are) not having dialogue and discussions on that."

The Security Council unanimously passed a resolution in early March expanding UN sanctions aimed at starving North Korea of funds for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

"We are going against that resolution also because that is not fair and (not just). At this point, because this is really the war now ... We are busy to deal with this semi-war status of the situation on the peninsula now."

Regarding the joint military exercises being conducted by U.S. and South Korean forces, he said: "Now they open (show) their true color, meaning the decapitation of the supreme leadership of DPRK."

So, asked prospects for resuming stalled six-party talks on his country's nuclear program replied: "The de-nuclearisation of the peninsula has gone."

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SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised a successful test of a new type of engine for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), its state media said on Saturday in the latest claim of making advances in its arms program that brought international sanctions.

The test was conducted at the country's long-range missile launch site near its west coast and was supervised by Kim, the North's KCNA news agency said.

The North said in March that it had miniaturized a nuclear warhead to be mounted on ballistic missiles and conducted a simulated re-entry test of a ballistic missile, which could indicate advances in its ICBM program, although South Korea has raised doubts about the assertions.

(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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North Korea recently resurrected an American hero to blast President Barack Obama over his position on the authoritarian country's nuclear program.

The letter, titled "Advice from Lincoln to Obama" and written in the supposed voice of late President Abraham Lincoln, was posted in Korean on the website of the Hermit Kingdom's state publication DPRK Today. North Korea regularly publishes anti-American propaganda aimed at a domestic audience.

"Hey, Obama," it begins, according to The Associated Press. "I know you have a lot on your mind these days. ... I've decided to give you a little advice after seeing you lost in thought before my portrait during a recent Easter Prayer Breakfast."

The letter questioned why the US discourages nuclear proliferation without scaling back its own nuclear arsenal, according to the AP.

The fake Lincoln advised: "If the United States, a country with the world's largest nuclear weapons stockpile, only pays lip service, like a parrot, and doesn't do anything actively, it will be a mockery to the entire world."

It continued

The tactic by past American presidents, including me, who deceived the people ... is outdated. That doesn't work now. The world doesn't trust an America that doesn't take responsibility for what it says.

The letter further suggested that achieving a nuclear-free world might be impossible.

"You talked boastfully how you would try your best even though it may seem impossible to realize such a world in your term, but how much progress have you made so far?" the letter said, according to The Washington Post. "None. Instead of abolishing nuclear weapons, the US has modernized its nuclear arms and conducted the "B61-12' nuclear test in Nevada last year."

Fake Lincoln continued:

If you were going to make the world nuclear free, the process would have to begin in the US, where numerous nuclear weapons are deployed domestically and internationally. I said this once when I was alive, but I'll say this once more. The government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth. This is the truth.

Lately, North Korea has been provoking its enemies abroad by boasting about its supposed nuclear and ballistic-missile capabilities. Experts believe that North Korea exaggerates its capacity to launch nuclear attacks.

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It is understandable that Americans focus their attention on the Middle East.

The media supplies a daily stream of news about America’s continued war with the Islamic State, or ISIS.

And the recent attacks in Europe and San Bernardino, have made terrorism a major issue in this year’s election, whether initiated by Jihadists recruited from at home or abroad.

Poll numbers at the end of last year suggested that a majority of Americans think that President Obama is not taking the threat from ISIS seriously enough.

They believe that an overwhelming use of force would end the threat. Indeed, a more recent poll  suggested that a plurality of those questioned believe the U.S. is losing the war on terrorism.

But is this where Americans should be focusing their attention if they are looking for large-scale threats? As someone who studies security issues, I believe that a recent cluster of events – North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests, China’s uncharacteristic reaction and the comments of G7 officials – provides us with some clues.

Existential threats must be…well, existential

The fact is that ISIS does not pose what has fashionably been termed an “existential” threat to the United States.

The word existential is increasingly used by politicians and analysts with little regard for its meaning beyond a large-scale threat. But Ted Bromund, a foreign policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, offers this more comprehensive definition:

An existential threat is one that would deprive the United States of its sovereignty under the Constitution, would threaten the territorial integrity of the United States or the safety within U.S. borders of large numbers of Americans, or would pose a manifest challenge to U.S. core interests abroad in a way that would compel an undesired and unwelcome change in our freely chosen ways of life at home.

Clearly, Jihadism as an ideology can’t do that to Americans. And despite the recent concerns expressed by President Obama, there is little chance that groups like ISIS can detonate a nuclear weapon in the U.S.

Even the admittedly terrifying release of a dirty bomb wouldn’t kill casualties on a massive scale. As the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission succinctly phrased it,

A dirty bomb is not a “Weapon of Mass Destruction” but a “Weapon of Mass Disruption” where contamination and anxiety are the terrorists’ major objectives.

The very long struggle with North Korea

The American public, particularly Republican voters, may continue to focus attention on terrorism, but they should be focusing their attention on developments in North Korea. Arguably, the events unfolding there far more threatening.

The U.S. has a long and violent history of struggle with North Korea, dating back to the bloody war that took place in the early 1950s and cost 36,574 American lives.

The truce between the two Koreas was never concluded by a peace agreement. In defense of South Korea, the U.S. has been in a perpetual state of limbo ever since, caught between war and peace.

Most Americans either don’t understand this or don’t care very much, with only 16 percent of Americans polled naming North Korea as America’s “greatest enemy” in a recent survey. But the North Koreans certainly do.

The Demilitarized Zone – a 148-mile-long strip of land that separates North and South Korea – is protected by 37,000 troops to its south and is home to over a million landmines. Indeed, the fact that the U.S. lays mines there is the primary reason often given for its failure to sign the 1998 Global Landmine Treaty.

North Korea is an impoverished country that has been propped up by China, its only major ally, since the end of World War II.

The Chinese don’t want a reunited, more powerful Korea on their doorstep, let alone one allied to the United States. China is North Korea’s biggest trading partner, and the Chinese have repeatedly provided diplomatic support to stave off the imposition of U.N. sanctions.

Comprehensive figures on aid or trade with North Korea are hard to find. But the U.N. routinely provides emergency assistance to stave off the occasional famine.

North Korea has been brutally ruled by 33-year-old Kim Jong-un for five years. He succeeded his father, Kim Jong-il, who led the country for 17 years.

To Americans, North Korea seems like a caricature of an evil dictatorship drawn in a Hollywood movie (as indeed it was, controversially, in the 2014 movie “The Interview").

It is one they only occasionally hear about, usually when an American foolhardy enough to visit there is detained on charges that baffle most Americans. The North Koreans then extort some prize in exchange for the prisoner’s release. This usually involves the visit of a high-level dignitary to plea for clemency, as Jimmy Carter did in 2010.

Just this January, Otto Frederick Warmbier, a visiting American student, was detained in January on the grounds that he had committed a “hostile act” by allegedly removing a political banner from a hotel and was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March.

Is there a real North Korean threat?

To many Americans, then, North Korea seems an appalling place. But they regard it as distant, backward and relatively harmless.

They are wrong.

North Korea’s leadership has seen – and still does see – the United States as its mortal enemy. And, unlike ISIS, it is developing into a viable one.

In 1993, a conflict over North Korea’s proposed testing of nuclear weapons generated a crisis that almost resulted in a war. A deal was eventually struck with the U.N. But this just delayed the inevitable.

Unlike the Iranians, North Korea moved ahead and began testing nuclear weapons a decade ago, in defiance of a U.N. agreement. Since then, they have reputedly carried out four underground nuclear tests, the most recent being in January this year.

Skeptics have consistently suggested that there is a difference between causing a nuclear explosion and being able to miniaturize the technology to put it is a missile head able to reach the American mainland. But in the last few months, the North Koreans have launched a series of missile tests.

And on April 9 they claimed to have successfully tested an engine designed for an intercontinental ballistic missile. This engine, they claim, would “guarantee” the ability of North Korea to launch a nuclear strike on the U.S. mainland. To emphasize the point, they also recently released a propaganda video depicting a nuclear strike on Washington.

Now that does sound like an existential threat.

It is anyone’s guess if they have in fact figured out how to fit a nuclear weapon in a missile. South Korean officials suggest that it is a possibility. And it is just as unclear if they have developed a missile that can reach the U.S. mainland.

The fact is, however, that the North Koreans’ bellicose behavior is making even their traditional Chinese allies nervous. China has now endorsed U.N. sanctions against its traditional ally. And – in a first – the two are engaged in an uncharacteristic public war of words, with Beijing staunchly opposing its ally’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

This behavior is scaring North Korea’s other neighbors as well.

The concluding statement at the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Japan this week condemned North Korea’s nuclear and missile testing.

The next foreign policy crisis

Of course Kim Jong-un may just be adopting an aggressive posture in order to ward off an American preemptive assault. But, if that is the case, he is taking a very big risk.

If North Korea is approaching the point where it has a nuclear capability, then there will inevitably be those who call for a preemptive strike before they join the nuclear club.

It is one thing to be near having a nuclear weapon. It is another thing to threaten the U.S. Only the foolhardy would do both.

So is it time to reassess what really constitutes an existential threat to the United States?

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- South Korea's Defense Ministry says that a North Korean launch of a missile appears to have failed.

The ministry on Friday did not immediately give any other details of the launch, which comes as the two Koreas trade threats amid Pyongyang's anger over annual South Korean-U.S. military drills that North Korea calls a rehearsal for an invasion.

The North has fired a slew of missiles and artillery shells into the sea in an apparent protest against the drills.

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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council on Friday condemned North Korea's failed ballistic missile launch, warning that it was a "clear violation" of U.N. resolutions and the council could take further punitive measures against Pyongyang.

Experts believe North Korea attempted to launch an intermediate-range ballistic missile on Friday in defiance of U.N. sanctions.

"The members of the Security Council strongly condemned the firing of a ballistic missile by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on April 15," the council said in a statement, using North Korea's official name.

"Although the DPRK's ballistic missile launch was a failure, this attempt constituted a clear violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions," it said.

The launch, on North Korea's so-called Day of the Sun which marks the birthday of the country's founder Kim Il-sung, followed its fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February, which led to new U.N. sanctions.

The council said it "would continue to closely monitor the situation and take further significant measures in line with (its) previously expressed determination."

(Editing by Richard Chang)

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North Korea is responsible for some of the world's most outlandish claims. These recent claims are some of the most interesting.

Produced by Emmanuel Ocbazghi

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North Korea appears to be preparing a test-launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said on Tuesday, after what the United States described as the "fiery, catastrophic" failure of the first attempt.

Separately, President Barack Obama said the United States is working on defending itself and its allies against potential threats from what he called an "erratic" country with an "irresponsible" leader.

On April 15, the North failed to launch what was likely a Musudan missile, with a range of more than 3,000 km (1,800 miles), meaning it could, if launched successfully, hit Japan and also theoretically put the U.S. territory of Guam within range.

The Musudan missile, which can be fired from a mobile launcher, is not known to have been successfully flight-tested.

In a CBS interview that aired on Tuesday, Obama said the United States "is spending a lot more time positioning our missile development systems, so that even as we try to resolve the underlying problem of nuclear development inside of North Korea, we're also setting up a shield that can at least block the relatively low-level threats that they're posing now."

North Korea tested its fourth nuclear bomb on Jan. 6 and launched a long-range rocket on Feb. 7, both in defiance of U.N. resolutions. On Saturday, the North conducted a test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile.

"There are indications that the North may fire a Musudan missile that it launched and failed on Kim Il Sung's birthday on April 15," Yonhap quoted an unnamed government official as saying. Kim Il Sung is the North's founder.

North Korea needs a "powerful nuclear deterrence" to counter U.S. hostility and threats, NorthKorea's foreign ministry was quoted by the state news agency KCNA as saying on Tuesday.

"The U.S. continued pursuance of extreme hostile policy and nuclear threat and blackmail against the DPRK will only make the latter make drastic progress in bolstering nuclear attack capabilities," KCNA quoted a ministry spokesman as saying.

North and South Korea remain technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, rather than a treaty. The North, whose lone major ally is neighbor China, routinely threatens to destroy South Korea and its major ally, the United States.

Obama said there "was no easy solution" to the North Korean threat, adding that while the United States "could destroy North Korea with our arsenals" there would not only be humanitarian costs but also a potential impact on South Korea.

The April 15 failure was seen as an embarrassing blow for current leader Kim Jong Un, Kim Il Sung's grandson, who has claimed several advances in weapons technology in recent months and is widely expected to conduct a fifth nuclear test soon.

South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun declined to confirm the Yonhap report but said the North's military would likely spend some time trying to fix the problem following the failed launch.

Experts see North Korea's Musudan test as part of an effort to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the mainland United States.

"They are erratic enough, their leader is personally irresponsible enough that we don't want them getting close" to obtaining such weapons, Obama told CBS.

North Korea said its nuclear test in January was a hydrogen bomb, although that claim has been disputed by foreign governments and experts given the relatively small size of the blast.

North Korea said its submarine-launched ballistic missile test on Saturday was a "great success" that provided "one more means for powerful nuclear attack".

South Korea on Tuesday described the test, which sent a missile traveling about 30 km (18 miles), as a partial success.

The United States and South Korea began talks on possible deployment of a new missile-defense system, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), after the latest North Korea nuclear and rocket tests.

Expanded U.N. sanctions aimed at starving North Korea of funds for its nuclear weapons program were approved in a unanimous Security Council vote in early March on a resolution drafted by the United States and China.

(Reporting by Jack Kim in Seoul; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington and Dominic Evans in London; Editing by Nick Macfie and Raissa Kasolowsky)

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SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea fired what appeared to have been an intermediate range ballistic missile on Thursday but it crashed seconds after the test launch, South Korea's defense ministry said.

A defense ministry official told Reuters that it appeared to be a Musudan missile with a range of more than 3,000 km (1,800 miles) - the same type of missile believed to have failed in a test launch earlier this month.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Tony Munroe and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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For Asia watchers, all eyes are on the North Korea Workers Party Congress convening in Pyongyang starting May 6. Curiosity abounds about what will be discussed, who will be promoted and dismissed, and if Kim Jong Un's byungjin policy ("parallel progress" of nuclear weapons and economic development) will morph more toward the economy than the military.

I want to caution against the inclination to hyper-focus on the party congress (including on what’s "new") and over-read its significance.

The Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea (DPRK) held its first party congress in 1946, and the idea was to hold regular plenums every five years.

For those who ask why the meeting is held now, after a 36-year hiatus, it might help to know that even under Kim Il Sung—the grandfather and "Great Leader," under whose watch the party enjoyed the most status and influence—full meetings of the party delegates took place irregularly: 1946, 1948, 1956, 1965, 1971, 1980. Numerous central committee meetings, party conferences, and other smaller gatherings were held more frequently.

Past legacy

Like any grand convocation of political parties, there is a scripted and ritualistic aspect that will be apparent in the seventh congress: narrative of overcoming obstacles and hardships, often placed in the DPRK's way by hostile foreign powers; achievements in the economic, cultural, and ideological path toward revolutionary socialism; the importance of Kim Il Sung's vision and leadership, and so on. 

There is also a regular business component: the selection of new members to the Central Committee, which expanded during the grandfather's tenure; discussion of economic and other problems such as cultural backwardness and wavering loyalties in society; and the rooting out of dissenters and challengers to Kim and his loyal supporters.

Many of these institutionalized elements will be evident in the coming days of the seventh congress. And if people find some developments "shocking" and therefore "substantive," we should remember that a year before the 1948 congress, 40,000 to 60,000 party members of the "wrong" faction were purged (expelled).

It took the almighty Kim Il Sung the first three congresses to consolidate his power. We should not expect the young grandson, who lacks a power base of his own and has no revolutionary credentials, to work miracles through his first and only meeting of the party.

It's the economy...

Every government worries about the impact of the economy on political leaders' legitimacy and authority. North Korea is no exception. Kim Il Sung spent a lot of time designing, calculating, building support for, and squashing opponents of his economic vision.

From the early 1960s through the 1970s, the DPRK was hell-bent on building an "industrial socialist state" from the literal ashes of the Korean War and managed to outpace South Korea in economic indices of growth and standards of living until the early 1970s.

The grandfather's emphasis on industrialization will most likely be modified toward light industries for mass consumption under the grandson. But there is likely to be a common emphasis on autonomy and self-reliance, partly because the DPRK economy is being squeezed by sanctions and because it is part of the young Kim's political inheritance.

At the 1980 congress, in his long address to the delegates, Kim Il Sung stated:

"Relying on the foundations of an independent national industry and the material basis laid for equipping all branches of the national economy with up-to-date techniques already in the period of the Five-Year Plan [1957-61] our Party saw that a powerful struggle was unrolled in the Seven-Year Plan [1961-1970] period to build an independent modern industry which is comprehensively developed, possessed of a solid raw-material base of its own and equipped with new techniques and to effect the all-round technical reconstruction of the national economy."

I would not be surprised to hear a variation of this theme from the mouth of Kim Jong Un. It's vague enough with no specific benchmarks to reach, inspiring enough for party cadres, and prepares the country for hard work and sacrifice at any time. But it does focus on the importance of modernizing the economic base.

So, we know we should expect some fanfare about military achievements (especially nuclear), some shuffling of party elites, and emphasis on the need for loyalty and support of the Kim regime and vision. What that vision is and how realistic it may be is what we don't know.

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In 1980, the last time North Korea's ruling Workers' Party gathered for a congress, current ruler Kim Jong-un hadn't yet been born, and the United States was far more worried about a nuclear strike by its Cold War foe the Soviet Union than one from Pyongyang, which was still nearly three decades away from its first atomic bomb test.

On May 6, Kim, who is believed to be 33 years old, will preside over the first Workers' Party congress in 36 years. The months leading up to the event have been marked by North Korea's fourth nuclear test, and a number of ballistic missile and rocket launches, including several that were epically botched.

International media outlets have received rare invites to Pyongyang to cover the historic political gathering, which is expected to last for at least two days, and possibly longer. Top party officials from around the reclusive nation have also flocked to the capital to attend, and security is said to be even tighter than normal, with authorities restricting travel and even, according to some reports, putting all marriages and funerals on hold for the time being.

There's been speculation that the congress will serve as a formal coronation of sorts for Kim, who assumed power in the Hermit Kingdom after his father Kim Jong-il's death in 2011. Kim has been consolidating his position ever since, but nobody outside of the reclusive nation is exactly sure what to expect. North Korea is a one-party, totalitarian political system, and most political gatherings are carefully choreographed and only serve to rubber-stamp edicts from the all-powerful leader, but there's a remote possibility that this one could be different.

To learn more about the Workers' Party congress and its significance, we spoke with Michael Madden, an expert on North Korean politics and a visiting scholar at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Madden is also a contributor to 38North.org, a leading North Korea analysis site, and the creator of the website North Korea Leadership Watch. The conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

VICE News: First off, what the hell is a Workers' Party congress?

Michael Madden: It's like one of these Democratic or Republican political conventions, basically. The party congress is derived from the old Marxist-Leninist system. The Chinese have one I think every five years or thereabouts, it's when the Chinese leadership turns over. It's basically just a political convention, but in a system like North Korea's which is considered a one-party government, a totalitarian government, a party congress has a much more significant meaning than a political convention or a party congress in other systems.

According to North Korea's bylaws, it's the supreme organ of the entire Workers' Party of Korea, and what they'll do is basically two things: Revise and amend the party charter, and they will then elect members of the power organizations. They'll elect the general or the first-secretary, which will be Kim Jong-un. They'll elect a Central Committee and they'll elect a Central Auditing Commission. That's basically it.

Why haven't they had one since 1980?

The primary reason has to do with Kim Jong-il, and it has to do with the fact that Kim Jong-il ruled outside of the party bylaws, he kind of ruled in violation of the party charter, which is North Korea's constitution, and started as soon as he was made successor officially, publicly in 1988. He controlled the Workers' Party from the late 1970s, and so he just didn't have one because Kim Jong-il didn't need to have one. Kim Jong-il developed a whole network of back-channels without really having a lot of political meetings.

Another reason has to do with the Arduous March in the 1990s [the famine that killed tens of thousands of people] — there weren't a lot of political gatherings then, but it mostly had to do with Kim Jong-il ruling North Korea and controlling the Workers' Party through back-channels. They had a couple party conferences in 2010 and 2012, which do a lot of the same things, a lot of the same technocratic or technical functions as a party congress, but the party congress is a lot more significant.

North Korea has political gatherings on a regular basis — their parliament meets but it's considered to be basically a rubber-stamp parliament. Is this going to be different?

It's going to be about the same. To a certain degree, it's going to be a rubber-stamp congress. That's not to say that people in the North Korean leadership don't debate issues, because they do, and they have deliberations about issues, but they're not going to have a public event, which is to say a congress or a Supreme People's Assembly session, until they have come to a consensus so that they can just then engage in a sort of rubber-stamp process.

There have been reports that say North Korea has banned travel, weddings, and even funerals ahead of the Congress. Could that be true?

Sure. I mean, they've already tightened control more broadly — and more invisibly, I guess — because of the nuclear test [in January]. So already parts of North Korea have been kind of shut down because of the nuclear test and because of the space launch anyway.

Weddings and funerals might be a bit much, but the thing is the police, the people that will be enforcing the travel controls and doing what is called population control, are also the same agencies that actually register people for marriages, issue marriage licenses, and issue death certificates. It's the Ministry of People's Security, and they issue all the official documents — birth records, death records, marriage records — they might be restricting them in practice because they need to deploy those resources elsewhere during the congress.

There's been a lot of speculation that this will be Kim Jong-un's coronation or the final stage of him consolidating power. Is that an accurate assessment?

I think it's going to help the process of him consolidating power in North Korea... when Kim Jong-il got sick back in 2007, he had sort of delegated some things to some top people. Kim Jong-un had to sort of reclaim these fiefdoms and the stuff the Kim Jong-il had outsourced, and that's where we say he's consolidating power, which is basically reclaiming stuff that his father had given up control of.

What does this mean for North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and the missiles they could use to launch them?
It doesn't mean anything. They're still going to do it. The missiles, I was talking to some analysts last week that work for the [US] government and we all kind of agreed that the nuclear and missile tests have very little to do with the timing of the party congress. On one hand, it is related, but on the other hand, North Korea was going to do more nuclear tests or maybe another test, and more missile tests and they'll do those until at least next year, until 2017.

What they are doing right now is they're taking advantage of the elections that are going on in the United States and South Korea. That is to say, we have a presidential election in the US, and then in 2017 they're going to have a presidential election in South Korea, so neither the senior leadership in the US or in South Korea is going to do anything preemptively against North Korea in that time period because it's just rude in politics to leave a mess for your successor to take over. That's part of what's going on with these missile tests. They just happen to have a party congress on the way to doing these activities.

North Korea does things like this, it's sort of killing two or three birds with one stone. They're going to talk about accomplishments [related to nuclear tests and missile launches] at the party congress, and they're going to enshrine the nuclear weapons program into the party charter. You might also see some language changes in the party charter which deals with how North Korea relates to the outside world, but specifically the US and South Korea.

Will this affect their economy? Is it possible Kim Jong-un could unveil some of the reforms that people have been waiting for or expecting for a few years now?

I'm not going to get excited about them revealing anything big. They're certainly going to say some things about economic development and doing stuff with the economy but they're going to use some quintessential North Korean political language around that. I don't expect them to announce any policy changes at the party congress, because it's just not the forum at which one would do that.

They'll talk about the two-line strategy, the so-called "byongjin" policy of nuclear weapons and economic development, and external observers will say that those things don't add up. Well, with all the sanctions against North Korea they don't add up, and it's not necessarily a practical reality for North Korea to try to pursue that, but they're going to pursue it anyway.

What are going to be able to learn from this in terms of who's who and who is powerful in North Korea beyond Kim Jong-un?

Kim Jong-un runs the show in North Korea, and obviously when you run the show you need some people under you to implement what you're doing, but Kim Jong-un runs the show. This is not The Wizard of Oz, there's no man behind the curtain, but we'll actually see the officials that are going to become prominent, some senior officials in the party apparatus who will become more prominent under Kim Jong-un.

There's been a bunch of officials that haven't shown up in state media for a few weeks, and I think that maybe they're being shown the exit doors, but we'll be able to see, based on who they elect to the Politburo, but more especially to what's called the Secretariat. If we see some new names show up there, we'll know who is influential in terms of policy. In North Korea, the Secretariat is where the sausage is made in terms of North Korean policy and personnel and stuff like that.

We'll be able to see who's who, and also who survives — who comes back. Sometimes any sort of large gathering in North Korea you can see if somebody has really been purged or executed or if they've just been undergoing re-education or they just sort of disappeared to get training or education on certain things in order to come back and have a senior position. That'll be where a lot of the excitement of the congress will be is in these personnel decisions. It's going to be a disappointment, I think, for a general audience.

His younger sister Kim Yo-jong is going to get put on the Central Committee, that's going to happen, she might even get put on as party director or something like that, which is interesting. The other thing is we'll see some younger millennials and Generation X type people come into the political power structure... it'll be demographic changes according to people's ages and also women. We'll probably see more women joining the party leadership, that's another trend we've seen under Kim Jong-un is more women are taking on senior positions in the leadership.

So it's not like they're pulling back the drapes and letting the world see what's going on, but it's a greater peek into the world of North Korean politics than one would normally get?

Oh yeah, they're going to publish a lot stuff they wouldn't normally publish. There's reporters and media organizations that are all camped out in North Korea right now... They've had big political meetings the last couple of years and they haven't revealed much to us, but this might give us a better peek into the system than we normally get.

This is actually a big trend that's happening in North Korea, it's way more transparent under Kim Jong-un than it used to be. It's a relative thing, it's very relative, there's no Real World: Pyongyang, but this will continue a precedent and they'll tell us a little more so we know what we're dealing with rather than just hiding behind the monolithic system.

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PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Senior members of North Korea's ruling regime took to the stage on Saturday to praise their party and leader Kim Jong Un at their biggest meeting in 36 years, a much-touted and tightly choreographed event intended to demonstrate Kim is firmly in control despite his country's deepening international isolation over its nuclear weapons program.

In something like a formal coronation for Kim, the ruling Workers' Party congress was also expected to officially elect him to its top post.

According to the North's state-run media, the agenda for the congress includes reviewing the work of the party's Central Committee and Central Audit Commission, revising party rules, electing Kim to the top party post and installing a new central party leadership — though no major departures from the current lineup were expected.

Video of the proceedings broadcast on state television on the second day of the congress Saturday showed party officials reporting accomplishments in the military, science and economy as part of the first item on the agenda.

The decision to formally install — or, perhaps more accurately, reinstall — Kim at the top is a step along the lines of his late father and grandfather, who both held the title of general secretary of the Workers' Party, and would demonstrate the young leader is in full control and ready to begin a new era of his own.

Kim is already head of the party, but with the title of first secretary. He could be re-elected to the same post or given an unspecified new one. His father, Kim Jong Il, holds the posthumous title of "eternal general secretary" and his grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung, is "eternal president."

Kim opened the lavish congress with a brief speech on Friday that singled out North Korea's advances in developing nuclear weapons and rockets capable of putting satellites into orbit, as examples of the country's progress in the face of international criticism and tough sanctions that threaten to further stifle its struggling economy.

Along with being high political theater filled with pomp and ceremony — the congress is being held in a lavishly decorated hall decked out with bright red banners and flags bearing the party's hammer, sickle and pen symbol — the gathering is a major milestone for the young North Korean leader, who was not yet born when the previous congress was held in 1980.

Kim called the congress a "historic" step in a grand struggle pitting the North against "all manner of threats and desperate challenges by the imperialists"— meaning mostly the United States. He said it would "put forward the strategic line and tasks to keep ushering in a great golden age of socialist construction and the direction of advance of our revolution."

The reference to what the North claims was a successful hydrogen bomb test in January brought a standing ovation from the more than 3,400 delegates at the congress. To put a finer point on his defiant message, outside observers believe, the North may be preparing to conduct another nuclear test soon.

An analysis released by the respected 38 North website, which follows developments in North Korea, said commercial satellite imagery of North Korea's Punggye-ri nuclear test site from May 5 suggests Pyongyang may be preparing for a nuclear test "in the near future."

The analysis said that overall activity at the site is low, but that vehicles have been spotted at what is believed to be the Command Center, located approximately 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) south of the test site.

On Saturday morning, thousands of people continued practicing their moves in open areas around Pyongyang for the kind of mass celebrations that North Korea typically puts on for big events.

Younger students are usually involved in a torchlight parade at nighttime. Older students and workers normally take part in a daylight parade. For many years, both of these mass celebrations have been held in Kim Il Sung Square in central Pyongyang, which was locked down on Wednesday for a giant dress rehearsal.

Some North Koreans said they were following the congress on television.

"I saw the congress last night on TV when I was at home with my family," Pyongyang resident An Myong Hui said Saturday. "Because it's the first one in 36 years and because Marshal Kim Jong Un was there, it made me feel really emotional."

Since assuming power after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in 2011, Kim has pushed a "byongjin" guns-and-butter policy of developing North Korea's nuclear weapons while also building its domestic economy.

Though the dual strategy is his trademark policy, many outside economists believe it is unlikely to succeed because of the heavy price the nuclear program brings in international sanctions that keep the country's economy from achieving sustainable growth.

All of the previous six congresses were convened by Kim's grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung. The previous one was used to formally announce Kim Jong Il as the second heir to power in the North's Kim family dynasty.

Kim Il Sung died in 1994, and Kim Jong Il — who rarely spoke in public — never called for the convening of a congress, though they were on paper supposed to be held every five years.

This one is clearly designed to put the spotlight on Kim Jong Un, who has yet to travel abroad or meet any world leaders. With that in mind, the North has invited over 100 foreign journalists in to cover the event, though none have been let inside the convention hall.

Instead, they have been kept busy touring showcase factories, hospitals and historic sites.

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PYONGYANG (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country would not use nuclear weapons unless its sovereignty is infringed by others with nuclear arms, in a speech broadcast on Sunday, and set a five-year plan to boost the secretive state's moribund economy.

The North "will faithfully fulfil its obligation for non-proliferation and strive for global denuclearization", Kim said on Saturday at the rare congress of the ruling Workers' Party, although the speech only aired on Sunday on state television.

Pyongyang was also willing to normalize ties with states that had been hostile towards it, Kim said.

Isolated North Korea has made similar statements in the past, although it has also frequently threatened to attack the United States and South Korea, and has defied United Nations resolutions in its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The first party congress in 36 years began on Friday amid anticipation by the South Korean government and experts that the young third-generation leader would use it to further consolidate power. Kim became leader in 2011 after his father's sudden death.

North Korea's economy is squeezed by U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March following its latest nuclear test, and Kim's five-year plan to boost economic growth emphasized the need to improve North Korea's electricity supply and develop domestic sources of energy, including nuclear power.

He laid out the blueprint in an address highlighting his "Byongjin" policy of jointly pushing forward economic development and nuclear armament.

On Sunday morning, foreign journalists were told to dress presentably and were brought to the People's Palace of Culture, where dozens of black Mercedes-Benz sedans, with the 727 number plates reserved for top government officials, were parked.

However, after a one-hour wait in a lobby outside large wooden doors with frosted glass, the journalists were taken back to their hotel without having met any officials.

While the North Korean capital has been tidied-up as part of a 70-day campaign of intensified labor ahead of the congress, the 128 members of the foreign media issued visas to cover the event had yet to be granted access to the proceedings as of Sunday afternoon.

Energy focus

North Korea does not publish economic data, though South Korea's central bank said last year the North's economy grew by 1 percent in 2014. The estimate did not include gray market economic activity, which has grown steadily in recent years and created an expanding consumer class.

Kim's economic plan spelled out areas of focus, including more mechanization of agriculture and automation of factories, and higher coal output, but gave few specific targets.

"(We must) solve the energy problem and place the basic industry section on the right track, and increase agricultural and light industry production to definitely improve lives of the people," Kim said in a speech that lasted just over three hours, with delegates at the end rising to their feet in applause and shouts of "manse!," or "cheers for long life!"

While the economic plan was short on detail, Michael Madden, an expert on the North Korean leadership, said it was significant that Kim had set out an economic plan at all.

"In stark contrast to his father, he is publicly taking responsibility for the economy and development as the originator of the policy. His father never undertook that responsibility," Madden said.

North Korea came under tougher new U.N. sanctions in March after its most recent nuclear test and the launch of a long-range rocket, which put an object into space orbit, in defiance of past Security Council resolutions.

Since then, it has continued to engage in nuclear and missile development, and claimed that it had succeeded in miniaturizing a nuclear warhead and launching a submarine-based ballistic missile.

"As a responsible nuclear weapons state, our Republic will not use a nuclear weapon unless its sovereignty is encroached upon by any aggressive hostile forces with nukes," Kim said.

Kim, 33, also called for improved ties with the rival South, although he has made similar proposals in the past that made little progress.

The two Koreas remain in a technical state of war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, and relations have been at a low since the North's January nuclear test, its fourth.

Kim Un Gyun, a 25 year old member of the elite Kim Il Sung Youth League, was among Pyongyang residents expressing support for Kim and his policies.

"Although we are under many sanctions, we have to strictly adhere to the nuclear program because it's the Marshal Kim Jong Un's Byongjin policy."

(Additional reporting by Joseph Campbell in Pyongyang, Jack Kim, Ju-min Park and Nataly Pak in SEOUL; Editing by Tony Munroe and Will Waterman)

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PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country will not use its nuclear weapons unless its sovereignty is invaded and announced a five-year economic plan at a milestone congress of North Korea's ruling party, which entered its third day Sunday.

Kim said he is ready to improve ties with "hostile" nations, and called for more talks with rival South Korea to reduce misunderstanding and distrust. He also urged the United States to stay away from inter-Korean issues.

"Our republic is a responsible nuclear state that, as we made clear before, will not use nuclear weapons first unless aggressive hostile forces use nuclear weapons to invade on our sovereignty," Kim said in a roughly three-hour speech shown Sunday on the North's Korean Central Television. Kim is believed to have delivered the speech at Pyongyang's April 25 House of Culture the day before, but its content wasn't made public until early Sunday.

At the congress, Kim also announced a five-year plan starting this year to develop the North's moribund economy, and identified improving the country's power supply and increasing its agricultural and light-manufacturing production as critical parts of the program. He also said the country must secure more electricity through nuclear power.

It was first time North Korea has announced a five-year plan since the 1980s and detailing it in such a public way demonstrated that Kim is taking ownership of the country's economic problems, something his father, Kim Jong Il, avoided as leader.

Kim stressed that the country needs to increase its international trade and engagement in the global economy, but didn't announce any significant reforms or plans to adopt capitalist-style marketization.

Market-style business has become more common in North Korea, in large part because of its economic crisis and famine in the 1990s, which made it impossible for the government to provide its citizens with the necessities they had come to rely on and forced many to learn how to fend for themselves. But while the realities on the ground have shifted, officials have been reluctant to formally embrace significant reforms as state policy.

Kim said that North Korea "will sincerely fulfill its duties for the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and work to realize the denuclearization of the world."

The North is ready to improve and normalize ties with countries hostile to it if they respect its sovereignty and approach it in a friendly manner, he said.

Despite the talks about more diplomatic activity, Kim also made it clear that the North has no plans to discard its "byongjin" policy of simultaneously developing its nuclear weapons and its domestic economy.

In a speech published by the North's Rodong Sinmun newspaper, Kim described the twin policy as a strategy the party must permanently hold on to for the "maximized interest of our revolution."

Many outside analysts consider the policy unlikely to succeed because of the heavy price North Korea pays for its nuclear program in terms of international sanctions that keep its economy from growing.

North Korea carried out its fourth nuclear test in January and followed with a satellite launch in February that was seen by outside governments as a banned test for long-range missile technology and brought tougher U.N. sanctions.

The North responded to the punitive measures, and also the annual U.S.-South Korean military drills in March and April, by firing a series of missiles and artillery into the sea. It also claimed advancements in developing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, and combined them with threats of pre-emptive nuclear strikes on Washington and Seoul.

South Korea has taken a hard-line approach to North Korea following its nuclear test and long-range rocket launch, shutting down a jointly run factory park in a North Korean border town that had been the last remaining symbol of cooperation between the rivals and slapping Pyongyang with its own economic sanctions.

Seoul has also been in talks with Washington on deploying a sophisticated U.S. missile defense system in South Korea.

Kim said "fundamentally improving" inter-Korean relations was an urgent matter for his government and also called for the South to "hold hands" with the North as a "companion" for unification, KCNA said.

He urged the need for more talks with the South, and in particular called for a meeting between military officials of both sides to reduce border tensions.

But he stressed that the South must first employ practical measures to improve ties and throw out laws and institutional systems that have hampered them. He also said that the United States should no longer be involved with matters on the Korean Peninsula, and that if enemy forces "ignite the fire of war," the North was ready to mercilessly punish the aggressors and accomplish the "historical feat" of unification.

Kim called for Seoul and Washington to stop their military drills and also said the United States must withdraw its 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea as a buffer against possible aggression from the North.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry had said ahead of the congress that the priority of any future talks with the North would be its denuclearization.

___

Associated Press writer Tong-hyung Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is willing to talk to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to try to stop Pyongyang's nuclear program, Trump told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

In a wide-ranging discussion, Trump also said he disapproved of Russian President Vladimir Putin's actions in eastern Ukraine, called for a renegotiation of the Paris climate accord, and said he would dismantle most of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations if he is elected president.

The presumptive Republican nominee declined to share details of his plans to deal with North Korea, but a meeting with Kim would mark a major shift in U.S. policy toward the isolated nation.

"I would speak to him, I would have no problem speaking to him," Trump said of Kim.

"At the same time I would put a lot of pressure on China because economically we have tremendous power over China," he said in the half-hour interview at his Trump Tower office in Manhattan.

China is Pyongyang's only major diplomatic and economic supporter.

Trump said the United States is treated unfairly in the Paris climate accord, which prescribes reductions in carbon emissions by more than 170 countries. A renegotiation of the pact would be a major setback for what was hailed as the first truly global climate accord, committing both rich and poor nations to reining in the rise in greenhouse gas emissions blamed for warming the planet.

Turning to the economy, Trump said he planned to release a detailed policy platform in two weeks. He said it would dismantle nearly all of Dodd-Frank, a package of financial reforms put in place after the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

"I would say it'll be close to a dismantling of Dodd-Frank. Dodd-Frank is a very negative force, which has developed a very bad name," Trump said.

The New York billionaire also said he perceived a dangerous financial bubble within the tech startup industry. He said tech companies were attaining high valuations without ever making money.

Trump also said he eventually wants a Republican to head the U.S. Federal Reserve, but said he is "not an enemy" of current chair Janet Yellen.

"I'm not a person that thinks Janet Yellen is doing a bad job. I happen to be a low-interest rate person unless inflation rears its ugly head, which can happen at some point," he said, adding that inflation "doesn't seem like it's happening any time soon." 

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Emily Flitter; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Tiffany Wu)

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