Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Tuesday for nations to step up the U.S.-led "maximum pressure" campaign against North Korea by thwarting sanctions evasion and interdicting ships conducting illicit trade with the pariah nation.
The message, delivered in Vancouver, British Columbia, to a gathering of 20 nations that were on America's side during the Korean War, came despite the recent diplomatic opening between the rival Koreas after a year of escalating tension.
"We must increase the costs of the regime's behavior to the point that North Korea must come to the table for credible negotiations," Tillerson said in his opening remarks at the meeting on Canada's western coast. The meeting convened days after a mistaken missile alert caused panic on Hawaii, a stark reminder of the fears of conflict with the North.
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said her nation's talks with North Korea, leading to its participation in next month's Olympics being hosted by the South, are a "significant first step toward restoring inter-Korean relations."
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But she conceded that despite the overtures, North Korea has yet to show any intention to fulfill its obligations on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono was more blunt, saying the North "wants to buy some time to continue their nuclear and missile programs."
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told reporters that in spite of the inter-Korean talks, "the North Korean regime is still going down the path of the acquisition of an [intercontinental ballistic missile] tipped with a nuclear device that could have incalculable geostrategic consequences."
The meeting is being attended by foreign ministers and senior diplomats of nations that sent troops or humanitarian aid to the U.N. Command that supported South Korea in the fight against the communist North and its allies during the 1950-53 Korean War. It's a diverse gathering of mostly European and Asian nations.
Officials are discussing sanctions, preventing the spread of weapons by North Korea, and diplomacy.
The gathering, co-hosted by Canada and the U.S., is strongly opposed by China and Russia, which fought on the communist side in the war. It appears primarily symbolic.
Although Tillerson said the meeting sends North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a unified message that a nuclear-armed North is unacceptable, it risks alienating China and Russia. They are North Korea's main trading and diplomatic partners but have nevertheless supported U.N. Security Council resolutions to restrict revenue for North Korean nuclear and missile development.
Tillerson called for China and Russia to fully implement the sanctions. He reiterated U.S. opposition to their idea of a "freeze-for-freeze," whereby the U.S. and South Korea would suspend military exercises in exchange for suspension of the North's nuclear programs.
According to the news agency Tass, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday called the Vancouver meeting "unacceptable" and "destructive." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters that a meeting that "doesn't include important parties to the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue" cannot help resolve it.
Tillerson said all nations must work together to improve maritime interdiction operations and stop illicit ship-to-ship transfers that violate U.N. sanctions. The U.S. has previously highlighted efforts by North Korea to circumvent restrictions on shipments of oil and petroleum products, most of which are supplied by China.
The latest U.N. Security Council resolution, adopted in December in response to an intercontinental ballistic missile test, calls on member states to impound vessels in their ports if there are reasonable grounds to suspect illicit trade with North Korea. It authorizes interdictions in a member state's territorial waters.
Tillerson on Tuesday also highlighted how North Korean missile tests pose a threat to civilian air traffic in the busy skies above East Asia.
"North Korea's willingness to launch missiles at any time presents a threat to people of all nationalities in the region's airspace each day," he said.
Despite Washington's tough stance and determination to keep up the pressure on North Korea, President Donald Trump has signaled openness to talks with the North under the right circumstances. After months of insults and blood-curdling threats he's traded with Kim, Trump suggested in an interview last week that the two leaders could have a positive relationship.
The White House said Trump spoke Monday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and they were hopeful that the inter-Korean talks "might prompt a change in North Korea's destructive behavior."
But Kim, widely viewed as seeking to drive a wedge between the U.S. and South Korea, shows no sign of making concessions toward Washington as his totalitarian government comes close to perfecting a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike the United States.
On Tuesday, North Korea's official news agency responded to Trump's "nuclear button tweet" earlier this month, describing it as the "the spasm of a lunatic," The Associated Press reported.
"The spasm of Trump in the new year reflects the desperate mental state of a loser who failed to check the vigorous advance of the army and people of the [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] ... He is making [a] bluff only to be diagnosed as a psychopath," said a commentary in the country's ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, summarized by the official state news agency.
North Korean media were referring to the U.S. president's response to Kim's New Year's Day taunt two weeks ago that the entire U.S. was within range of his nuclear weapons, and his nuclear button was always on his desk. Trump tweeted Jan. 3 that his "nuclear button" was "much bigger & more powerful" than the North Korean leader's. He went on to threaten that the U.S. arsenal "works."
Pyongyang still agreed later on to high-level talks with Seoul, raising hopes for an improvement of relations with South Korea.
Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Pennington of The Associated Press; and by Rick Noack of The Washington Post.
A Section on 01/17/2018