US plays down North Korea threat

US officials have played down the threat of war on the Korean peninsula, after weeks of bellicose statements from Pyongyang.

Add caption

A White House spokesman said the US "would not be surprised" if North Korea launched a missile, while a top US military officer said recent threats appeared to fit a familiar pattern.

Pyongyang has threatened to attack both US and South Korean targets.
It has told foreign embassies it cannot guarantee their safety in a conflict.
Diplomats in Pyongyang were asked on Friday to tell the foreign ministry by 10 April what help they would need in evacuating.
The warning prompted Russia to ask whether Pyongyang was offering help in the event of a conflict, or making a decision.
South Korean media reported on Friday that the North had moved two intermediate range missiles into position on the east coast.
The missiles are untested but it is believed they could reach as far as the Pacific Island of Guam, where the US has a military base, and where it has confirmed it will deploy a missile defence system.
Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, said two warships equipped with Aegis defence systems would monitor the situation.
'Reckless'

North Korea has issued a series of unusually strong threats since it was sanctioned by the UN in March for having carried out a third nuclear test.

It has threatened nuclear strikes on the US, formally declared war on the South, and pledged to reopen a nuclear reactor in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Friday a missile launch would not be unexpected.
"We would not be surprised to see them take such an action,'' he said. "We have seen them launch missiles in the past.''
Seoul has also played down the North's reported missile move, saying it may be planning a test rather than a hostile act.
Gen Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the North's nuclear threat "reckless", but said it seemed to fit a decades-long pattern of escalation followed by accommodation.

"I wouldn't say I see anything to lead me to believe that this is a different kind of cycle,'' he told the Associated Press news agency.

Even so, Gen Dempsey said the cycle was more unpredictable because relatively little was known about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who came to power after his father's death in December 2011.

"Though we've always said that North Korea has been a bit opaque to us, in the past we've understood their leadership and the influencers a little better than we do today," he said.
Many of North Korea's angry statements have cited the annual military exercises between US and South Korean forces as provocation.
The US flew nuclear-capable B2 and B52 bombers over the South as part of the drill, and has since deployed warships with missile defence systems to the region.
Gen Dempsey said US moves had been "largely defensive and exclusively intended to reassure our allies".
The BBC's Lucy Williamson reports from Seoul that the heightened atmosphere could make any action riskier for North Korea.
With military communication lines cut, even an unarmed test-flight of its rockets could be misconstrued, and any glitch in flight path or target could lead to a major escalation, she adds.
North Korea has not taken direct military action since 2010, when it shelled a South Korean island and killed four people.

Despite its warning that it could not guarantee the safety of foreign embassies, both Russia and the UK said they had no immediate plans to evacuate their embassies in Pyongyang.

North Korea blocks South workers from Kaesong industrial zone

North Korea is blocking the entry of South Korean workers into a joint industrial zone, in a move seen as further escalating tension

Workers were being allowed to leave the Kaesong complex but not cross into it from the South, Seoul's Unification Ministry confirmed.
The Kaesong zone, which is a money-maker for the North, is seen as a key barometer of inter-Korean relations.
The move came as the US called North Korea's recent rhetoric unacceptable.
The joint industrial park is home to more than 100 factories. More than 50,000 North Koreans work there, as well as several hundred South Korean managers who request permission on a daily basis to cross into the zone.
"South Korea's government deeply regrets the entry ban and urges it be lifted immediately," Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-seok told reporters.

The entry ban is not unprecedented - South Koreans were briefly denied access in March 2009 because of US-South Korea military exercises.
North Korea, which has been angered by UN sanctions imposed after its recent nuclear test and annual US-South Korea military drills, threatened to shut down the complex last week.
In recent weeks it has also threatened attacks on US military bases in Asia and South Korean border islands. On Tuesday it said it planned to restart its mothballed reactor at Yongbyon - the source of plutonium for its nuclear weapons programme

Late on Tuesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry called recent North Korean actions "dangerous" and "reckless"

"Let me be perfectly clear here today. The United States will defend and protect ourselves and our treaty ally, the Republic of Korea (South Korea)," he said after talks with his South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se.

In recent days the US has responded to North Korea with a series of high-profile flights of advanced aircraft, including stealth fighters and nuclear-capable B-52 bombers, over South Korea.
Officials have also confirmed that the USS John McCain, an Aegis-class destroyer capable of intercepting missiles, has been positioned off the Korean peninsula.

A second destroyer, the USS Decatur, has been sent to the region.
Earlier on Tuesday UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had warned that the crisis had "gone too far" and called for urgent talks with the North.

"Things must begin to calm down, there is no need for the DPRK [North Korea] to be on a collision course with the international community. Nuclear threats are not a game," Mr Ban said.