Pence assures Japan America is with ally '100 percent'

North Korea will continue to test missiles, a senior official has told the BBC in Pyongyang, despite global condemnation and growing military tensions with the US.

North Korea has taken "self-defensive" measures in response to United States threats of military action and these reflect Pyongyang's determination to "counter nukes and ICBM in kind", Kim said, referring to intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The Trump administration has signaled a more forceful USA stance toward North Korea's recent missile tests and threats, including a warning from Trump that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has "gotta behave".

"We hope to achieve this objective through peaceful means, but all options are on the table", said Pence. Pressure on North Korea is crucial, he said.

According to an AP report, the fraught situation on the Korean Peninsula is now in a "vicious cycle", Song-Ryol said.

North Korea's UN deputy representative, Kim In Ryong, on Monday unleashed at a hastily called UN press conference a torrent of threats, war scenarios and rhetoric aimed at the United States.

"I think when we talked about. the use of red lines in the past with respect to Syria, the president's made lines- you know, that drawing lines hasn't really worked in the past". The new administration has repeatedly said that it is seriously anxious about North Korea's efforts to develop a nuclear-tipped missile that could hit the United States mainland.

It also came the day after North Korea's latest launch - which failed when the missile blew up seconds after blast-off.

In this April 15, 2017 file photo, a submarine missile is paraded across the Kim Il Sung Square during a military parade, in Pyongyang, North Korea to celebrate the 105th birth anniversary of Kim Il Sung, the country's late founder.

"We'll be conducting more missile tests on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis", said Han.

In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, speaking to a parliamentary session on Monday, said: "Diplomatic effort is important to maintain peace". But he said "dialogue for the sake of having dialogue" is useless.

Back before the age of Twitter, a previous United States president traveled to within spitting distance of North Korea and issued a stark warning about the nuclear aspirations of that country's leaders.

Lu said Beijing wants to resume the multi-party negotiations that ended in stalemate in 2009 and suggested that US plans to deploy a missile defense system in South Korea were damaging its relations with China.

Tensions on the peninsula have ratcheted up in recent weeks, amid tit-for-tat saber-rattling from the USA and North Korea and analysts' warnings that North Korea was preparing for a sixth nuclear test.

"We're reviewing all of our trade agreements across the world to ensure that they benefit our economy as much as they benefit our trading partners", Pence told the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea.

Yes, President Trump said that he doesn't "want to telegraph what I'm doing or what I'm thinking".

Blue huts straddle the border, where tense negotiations have been held between the North, South and the United States since armistice.

The vice president reiterated Monday that "all options are on the table" to deal with the threat posed by North Korea. "The President has no further comment", said U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis.

Other top White House officials said a day earlier that Trump could "take action" against North Korea.

What sort of settlement and concessions should the US seek from North Korea? Tensions on the Korean peninsula, going back decades, tend to rise and fall.

His national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, said the USA would rely on its allies as well as Chinese leadership to resolve the issues with North Korea.