SEOUL - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un
called at a ruling party meeting for "positive and offensive
measures" to ensure security ahead of a year-end deadline he has
set for denuclearisation talks with the United States, state
media KCNA said on Monday.
Kim convened a weekend meeting of top Workers' Party
officials to discuss policy matters amid rising tension over his
deadline for Washington to soften its stance in stalled
negotiations aimed at dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear and
missile programmes.
At a Sunday session, Kim suggested action in the areas of
foreign affairs, the munitions industry and armed forces,
stressing the need to take "positive and offensive measures for
fully ensuring the sovereignty and security of the country,"
KCNA said, without elaborating.
The meeting was the largest plenary session of the party's
7th Central Committee since its first gathering in 2013 under
Kim, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry handling
inter-Korean affairs.
The key policy-making organ drew several hundred attendees,
state television showed on Monday. The committee also met in
2018 and in April but on a much smaller scale.
KCNA said the meeting was still under way. It was the first
time the gathering has lasted more than one day since Kim took
power in late 2011, ministry spokesman Lee Sang-min told a
regular briefing.
"By 'positive and offensive measures,' they might mean
highly provocative action against the United States and also
South Korea," said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University
of North Korean studies in Seoul.
North Korea has urged Washington to offer a new approach to
resume negotiations, warning that it may take an unspecified
"new path" if the United States fails to meet its expectations.
U.S. military commanders said the move could include the
testing of a long-range missile, which North Korea has suspended
since 2017, along with nuclear warhead tests.
Washington would be "extraordinarily disappointed" if North
Korea tests a long-range or nuclear missile, White House
national security adviser Robert O'Brien said on Sunday, vowing
to take appropriate action as a leading military and economic
power.
The United States had opened channels of communication with
North Korea and hoped Kim would follow through on
denuclearisation commitments he made at summits with U.S.
President Donald Trump, O'Brien said.
A video released by the U.S. Air Force and reviewed by
Reuters on Monday showed a simulation of an Aegis destroyer
spotting what appeared to be a North Korean intercontinental
ballistic missile being fired towards the Pacific over the skies
of Japan, prompting the launch of ground interceptor missiles.
The 65-second clip was dated September and released on Dec.
2 on the website of the U.S. Defense Visual Information
Distribution Service.
A South Korean military source said while it was largely a
regular promotional video, its release coincided with heightened
tensions amid a recent series of North Korean weapons tests and
a war of words between Pyongyang and Washington.
'INDEPENDENT ECONOMY'
North Korea's economy seemed to be another key item on the
agenda for the second-day session, Yang said, with the economy
hit by international sanctions over its weapons programmes.
KCNA said Kim discussed state management and economic issues
in line with his campaign to build an "independent economy".
Kim "presented the tasks for urgently correcting the grave
situation of the major industrial sectors of the national
economy," KCNA said.
In New York, U.N. Security Council members are scheduled to
hold an informal meeting on Monday to contemplate a Russian and
Chinese proposal to ease sanctions on North Korea.
Russia and China proposed a draft U.N. Security Council
resolution earlier this month that would lift some sanctions in
a bid to kick-start the denuclearisation talks.
Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng
Shuang said the proposal was aimed at promoting the talks
process and to "satisfy reasonable humanitarian and livelihood
requirements" from North Korea.
"China hopes that when it comes to the peninsula issue,
Security Council members can assume their responsibilities and
take proactive steps to support a political resolution," he told
a daily news briefing.
The move is seen as an attempt to create a crack in a
U.S.-led global campaign to pressure North Korea to give up its
weapons programmes amid lacklustre progress in the negotiations.
Sanctions on industries that earned North Korea hundreds of
millions of dollars a year were imposed in 2016 and 2017 to cut
off funding for Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programmes.