| |
| |
![]() |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
SEOUL : The United States and South Korea Friday held high-level security talks amid high tensions sparked by North Korea's nuclear sabre-rattling, officials said.
The meeting between US undersecretary for defence Michele Flournoy and South Korean Defence Minister Lee Sang-Hee lasted for about 30 minutes, Lee's office said.
North Korea topped the agenda, a defence ministry spokesman said, declining to give further details.
The North has alarmed the international community by vowing to build more nuclear bombs after the UN slapped new sanctions on the reclusive state for carrying out its second nuclear test and missile launches last month.
The UN Security Council has authorised an arms embargo and inspections of North Korean ships believed to be carrying weapons of mass destruction.
Flournoy's Asian trip, which also included stops in Beijing and Tokyo, came as a US Navy destroyer tracked a North Korean ship suspected of carrying a banned cargo.
US officials have said that the ship, the Kang Nam 1, was being tracked by the Aegis destroyer USS John S. McCain under the UN sanctions and could be headed to Myanmar.
South Korea's YTN television news channel, citing an unnamed intelligence source, reported on Sunday the ship was suspected of carrying missiles or related parts and was heading for Myanmar via Singapore.
The US Defence Department has said that the ship was still being monitored but declined to give its location or say if or when the US Navy might ask to search it.
The North has reacted defiantly to the new sanctions.
Rodong Sinmun, newspaper of the ruling communist party, warned Thursday that "dark clouds of nuclear war" were gathering over the peninsula. It said Pyongyang would strengthen its atomic arsenal.
- AFP/vm
|
