North Korea accuses US and allies of launching ‘soul to contain regime’
North Korea accused the US and its allies of launching a sinister attempt to form an Asian Nato to contain the regime, hours before Joe Biden and his Japanese and South Korean counterparts meet for security talks.
North Korea's state news agency said on Wednesday that the US is obsessed with military cooperation with its stooges in disregard of the primary security demand and concern by Asia-Pacific countries.
Biden was expected to meet the Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on the sidelines of the Nato summit in Madrid to discuss the North's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, in the countries first bilateral summit for five years.
Pyongyang has reacted angrily to plans by the US, Japan and South Korea to conduct a combined missile detection and missile tracking exercise near Hawaii in August.
The regime denounces joint military drills between US and South Korea as preparations for an invasion, and uses them to justify its development of nuclear weapons.
North Korea has conducted a record 31 ballistic missile tests this year, including one involving its largest intercontinental ballistic missile yet. The regime is preparing to test a nuclear weapon for the first time since 2017 according to speculation.
Some analysts believe that Pyongyang could use a nuclear test to claim that it has the ability to build nuclear warheads small enough to be placed on short-range missiles capable of hitting Japan and South Korea.
North Korea's foreign ministry said at the weekend that the US-Japan-South Korea drills exposed the hypocrisy behind Washington s calls for a return to nuclear negotiations without preconditions, three years after talks between Donald Trump and North Korea leader Kim Jong-un ended in failure.
The exercises revealed that there was no change to the US's ambition to overthrow our system by force, and Biden is coming under pressure to come up with a more robust approach to North Korea after years of international sanctions and condemnation failed to prevent it from developing weapons of mass destruction.
The US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday that Biden, Kishida and Yoon will discuss how to rein in North Korean provocations.
He said that the trilateral summit will focus on the continuing threat from North Korea, especially after an extended period of intense testing and other provocative activities that the North Koreans have undertaken.
The three leaders will discuss what they will do on the economic pressure side, particularly when it comes to depriving the North of hard currency that they use to fund their nuclear and missile programs, according to Sullivan.
After years of tension between Japan and South Korea, the move towards closer trilateral security cooperation will be a relief for US officials, as it will be one of two main allies in the region over historical issues relating to Japan's 1910 -- 45 colonial rule of the Korean peninsula.
Washington has encouraged Seoul and Tokyo to settle their differences in the face of North Korean threats and increased Chinese military activity in the South and East China Seas.