News: North Korea 'will test missiles weekly', senior official tells BBC
The BBC's John Sudworth asks North Korea's vice-foreign minister what message he has for Donald Trump.
North Korea will continue to test missiles, a senior official has told the BBC in Pyongyang, despite international condemnation and growing military tensions with the US.
BBC News:
"We'll be conducting more missile tests on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis," Vice-Foreign Minister Han Song-ryol told the BBC's John Sudworth.
He said that an "all-out war" would result if the US took military action.
Earlier, US Vice-President Mike Pence warned North Korea not to test the US.
He said his country's "era of strategic patience" with North Korea was over.
Mr Pence arrived in Seoul on Sunday hours after North Korea carried out a failed missile launch.
Tensions have been escalating on the peninsula, with heated rhetoric from both North Korea and the US.
Mr Han told the BBC: "If the US is planning a military attack against us, we will react with a nuclear pre-emptive strike by our own style and method."
How did we get here?
North Korea has accelerated its nuclear and missile tests in recent years, despite international condemnation and UN sanctions.
Its aim is to be able to put a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach targets around the world, including the US.
US President Donald Trump has said that will not happen, and stepped up pressure on the isolated North.
He has sent a navy strike group towards the Korean Peninsula, and the US and South Korea are moving ahead with the early deployment of a controversial missile defence system.
Despite the tension, North Korea may carry out a sixth nuclear test soon, observers say. It test-fired a missile on Sunday that exploded within seconds of launch, following a grand military parade on Saturday.
What has the US told North Korea?
Speaking alongside South Korea's acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn on Monday, Mr Pence said North Korea should not test US President Donald Trump.
"Just in the past two weeks, the world witnessed the strength and resolve of our new president in actions taken in Syria and Afghanistan," Mr Pence said.
"North Korea would do well not to test his resolve or the strength of the armed forces of the United States in this region."
He reiterated US support for South Korea, telling his host: "We are with you 100%."
Last month, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that pre-emptive military action was "on the table".
But the US is also working with China, North Korea's main ally, to pressure the regime to stop nuclear and missile tests.
Mr Pence told journalists that the White House hoped China would use its "extraordinary levers" to pressure North Korea, the Associated Press reports.
The BBC's Stephen Evans in Seoul says US policy now seems to be to persuade China to contain North Korea while keeping the economic and military pressure on.
What does North Korea say?
Vice-Foreign Minister Han Song-ryol told the BBC that North Korea believed its nuclear weapons "protect" it from the threat of US military action.
"If the US is reckless enough to use military means it would mean from that very day, an all-out war," he said.
The North casts the US as the aggressor.
At a news conference at the UN on Monday, North Korea's permanent representative Ambassador Kim In-ryong, condemned the US missile strikes in Syria, which targeted an air base after a suspected chemical attack by the government.
He said the US was "disturbing global peace and stability and insisting on the gangster-like logic that its invasion of a sovereign state is decisive and just and proportionate and contributes to defending the international order".
And what about other world powers?
China has reiterated its call for North Korea to stop all tests, and has also called for a peaceful solution.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters in Beijing on Monday that the Korean peninsula was "highly sensitive, complicated and high risk" and that all sides should "avoid taking provocative actions that pour oil on the fire".
On Sunday, Lt Gen HR McMaster, the US top security adviser, said his country was working on a "range of options" with China, the first confirmation the two countries were co-operating to find a solution to the North Korean issue.
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would not tolerate "missile adventures by Pyongyang" but a unilateral use of power by the US would be "a very risky course".
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday told a parliamentary session that diplomatic efforts were "important to maintain peace", but "dialogue for the sake of having dialogue is meaningless".
He added that Japan needed to apply pressure on Pyongyang to "seriously respond to a dialogue" with the international community.
Aljazeera News:
North Korea on 'maximum alert' after US threats
Deputy foreign minister warns Washington that North's nuclear weapons are 'not an illusion', following US threats.
North Korea has warned its army is on "maximum alert" after the US vice president visited the heavily militarised border between the two Koreas and reiterated Washington's position that "all options are on the table" in dealing with Pyongyang.
Sin Hong-chol, North Korea's deputy foreign minister, told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview on Monday that Donald Trump's administration "should look at the world with open eyes".
"The time of dictating orders by brandishing the US military might has gone. If those businessmen in power in the US thought of intimidating us by any military or sanction threats - as the [Barack] Obama administration used to do and failed - they will soon find out such threats are useless," Sin said.
"If we notice any sign of assault on our sovereignty, our army will launch merciless military strikes against the US aggressors, wherever they may exist, from the remote US lands to the American military bases on the Korean peninsula, such as those of Japan and elsewhere."
Sin also said the six-nation talks aiming to make the Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons were "throttled at birth".
"The nuclear weapon in our possession is not illusion; it is not a commodity that may be traded for American dollars - nor is it for sale. So it cannot be put on the negotiating table with the aim to rip it off," he said.
Tensions between Pyongyang and Washington have soared in recent weeks, as a series of North Korean missile tests have wrought ever-more bellicose warnings from Donald Trump's administration.
On Monday, US Vice President Mike Pence - visiting the world's most heavily militarised border that divides the two Koreas - hinted military options against the North have not been ruled out.
"The people of North Korea, the military of North Korea should not mistake the resolve of the United States of America to stand with our allies," Pence said, adding "the era of strategic patience is over".
"All options are on the table as we continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of South Korea," he said from the village of Panmunjom, inside the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ).
On Sunday, Pyongyang conducted its latest missile test, which the US and South Korea said crashed in failure after only a few seconds upon launch.
The Trump administration has indicated it will not allow North Korea to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the western United States.
Pyongyang insists it needs a powerful arsenal - including atomic weapons - to protect itself from what it says is the ever-present threat of invasion by hostile US forces.
Speaking to Al Jazeera from Seoul, Korea specialist and author Donald Kirk noted the rhetoric between the rivals continues to escalate and a "violent confrontation" was a real possibility.
"Certainly the tension level is very high. Vice President Pence talked very tough today… He left open the possibility of a pre-emptive strike," said Kirk.
Tensions between Pyongyang and Washington go back to the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. But the heat has been rising rapidly since Trump took office in January.
The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier has been diverted back to the waters off the Korean peninsula after heading for Australia, and US satellite imagery suggests the North could conduct another underground nuclear test at any time.
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