Korea crisis high on agenda at London G8 talks

The Korean crisis will be high on the agenda when foreign ministers from the G8 group of nations hold talks in London on Thursday.

Correspondents say Japan, present at the talks, is looking for a strong statement of solidarity over the issue.
North Korea has been making bellicose threats against South Korea, Japan and US bases in the region.
Ministers will also debate the Syrian crisis, Iran's nuclear programme and sexual violence in conflicts.
The BBC's diplomatic correspondent James Robbins says ministers agree that the combination of warlike threats from Pyongyang and preparations for new missile tests amount to dangerous provocation.
"There is no disagreement with the United States over North Korea," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in London on Wednesday.
South Korea has raised its alert level amid indications that the North is preparing for a missile test.
Pyongyang has increased its fiery rhetoric following fresh UN sanctions imposed after its third nuclear test and joint military manoeuvres by the US and South Korea.
Syria division Meanwhile, G8 ministers met Syrian opposition figures on Wednesday on the sidelines of the two-day meeting.
Our correspondent says that, unlike North Korea, Syria divides the G8 and no-one expects Damascus's ally Russia to join others backing punitive action against President Bashar al-Assad.
Fresh evidence of links between some opposition fighters and al-Qaeda make it even harder for governments to decide a course of action, he adds.
In a meeting with ministers on Wednesday, leaders of the opposition Syrian National Coalition (SNC) reportedly pressed for more humanitarian assistance.
Mr Kerry, however, stressed the importance of the opposition becoming better organised, a senior US official told reporters. 

In a statement issued after the talks, UK Foreign
Secretary William Hague said Britain was committed to finding a political solution to the crisis.
"We discussed what further assistance the UK could provide to save lives in Syria, and how we could work together to ensure this support was channelled most effectively," he said.
The London talks are also the first chance for G8 ministers to discuss face-to-face the failure of last week's meeting in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on curbing Iran's nuclear programme.
Tehran says it only wants to produce energy but the US and its allies suspect it is trying to develop a nuclear weapon.
Mr Hague, meanwhile, has said his "personal priority" for the G8 meeting is a new agreement to prevent sexual violence in conflicts.
Burma, Somalia and cyber-security are also topics on the agenda.
The Group of Eight nations comprises the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia.
Britain currently holds the rotating chairmanship of the G8 and the talks are a prelude to the annual G8 summit later this year in Northern Ireland.

       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.

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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.