Tag Archives: North Korea

North Korea warns U.S. skeptics as Kim heads for summit with Trump

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves from a train as he departs for a summit in Hanoi, in Pyongyang, North Korea in this photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on February 23, 2019. KCNA via REUTERS

By Jack Kim and Josh Smith

HANOI (Reuters) – North Korea warned President Donald Trump on Sunday not to listen to U.S. critics who were disrupting efforts to improve ties, as its leader, Kim Jong Un, made his way across China by train to a second summit with Trump in Vietnam.

The two leaders will meet in Hanoi on Wednesday and Thursday, eight months after their historic summit in Singapore, the first between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader, where they pledged to work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

But their vaguely worded agreement has produced few results and U.S. Democratic senators and U.S. security officials have warned Trump against cutting a deal that would do little to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

The North’s KCNA state news agency said such opposition was aimed at derailing the talks.

“If the present U.S. administration reads others’ faces, lending an ear to others, it may face the shattered dream of the improvement of the relations with the DPRK and world peace and miss the rare historic opportunity,” the news agency said in a commentary, referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The Trump administration has pressed the North to give up its nuclear weapons program, which, combined with its missile capabilities, pose a threat to the United States, before it can expect any concessions.

But in recent days Trump has signaled a possible softening, saying he would love to be able to remove sanctions if there is meaningful progress on denuclearization.

Trump also said he was in no rush and had no pressing schedule for North Korea’s denuclearization, hinting at a more gradual, reciprocal approach, long favored by Pyongyang.

The North also wants security guarantees and a formal end of the 1950-1953 Korean War, which ended in a truce, not a treaty.

Trump said on Sunday that he and Kim expect to make further progress at this week’s summit and again held out the promise that denuclearization would help North Korea develop its economy.

He also said Chinese President Xi Jinping has been supportive of Trump’s meeting with Kim. “The last thing China wants are large scale nuclear weapons right next door.”

TRUMP SCOFFS AT CRITICS

Trump scoffed at critics of his handling of North Korea.

“So funny to watch people who have failed for years, they got NOTHING, telling me how to negotiate with North Korea. But thanks anyway!” he said in a tweet.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told “Fox News Sunday” that North Korea has yet to take “concrete” steps on denuclearization and said another summit might be needed beyond the one in Hanoi, but that he hoped for substantial progress this week.

“The alternative to giving up his nuclear weapons is remaining a pariah state, remaining a nation that is unable to trade, unable to grow, unable to take care of its own people,” Pompeo said of Kim in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union.”

In a letter to Trump last week, three Democratic chairmen of key committees in the House of Representatives accused the administration of withholding information on the negotiations with North Korea.

“There are ample reasons to be skeptical that Chairman Kim is committed to a nuclear-free North Korea,” the lawmakers wrote.

U.S. intelligence officials recently testified to Congress that North Korea was unlikely to ever give up its entire nuclear arsenal.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that Pompeo has conceded in private discussions with Korea experts that he would be lucky if North Korea agreed to dismantle 60 percent of what the United States has demanded, although he added that it would still be more than any other administration had achieved.

The State Department declined to comment on the report.

KCNA, referring to U.S. fears of the North’s weapons, said if this week’s talks ended without results, “the U.S. people will never be cleared of the security threats that threw them into panic”.

Few details of Kim’s trip to Vietnam were announced until early on Sunday, when North Korean state media confirmed he had left Pyongyang by train, accompanied by senior officials as well as his influential sister, Kim Yo Jong.

RED CARPET SEND-OFF

In rare, revealing coverage of Kim’s travel, the North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper featured photographs of the leader getting a red-carpet send-off on Saturday afternoon and waving from a train door while holding a cigarette.

He was joined by top officials also involved in the Singapore summit, including Kim Yong Chol, former spy chief and Kim’s top envoy in negotiations with the United States, as well as senior party aide Ri Su Yong, Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho and defense chief No Kwang Chol.

Other senior officials, such as his de facto chief of staff, Kim Chang Son, and Kim Hyok Chol, negotiations counterpart to U.S. envoy Stephen Biegun, were already in Hanoi to prepare for the summit.

Both sides are under pressure to forge more specific agreements than were reached in Singapore.

The two leaders are likely to try to build on their personal connection to push things forward in Hanoi, even if only incrementally, analysts said.

“They will not make an agreement which breaks up the current flow of diplomacy. (President Trump) has mentioned that they’ll meet again; even if there is a low-level agreement, they will seek to keep things moving,” said Shin Beom-chul, a senior fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

Few details of summit arrangements have been released.

Some lamp posts on Hanoi’s tree-lined streets are decked with North Korean, U.S. and Vietnamese flags fluttering above a handshake design, and security has been stepped up at locations that could be the summit venue, or where the leaders might stay.

It could take Kim at least 2-1/2 days to travel to Vietnam by train.

(Additional reporting by Joyce Lee, Ju-min Park, Soyoung Kim, Hyonhee Shin, James Pearson, and Ginger Gibson in Washington; Editing by Robert Birsel and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Trump won’t rush North Korea on denuclearization; peace deal possible

A person walks past a banner showing North Korean and U.S. flags ahead of the North Korea-U.S. summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, February 25, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

By Hyonhee Shin

HANOI (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un will hold a second summit this week with no real expectation of a final deal on ridding the North of nuclear weapons but raised hopes on Monday for an official peace on the peninsula at long last.

The two leaders are due to meet in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, on Wednesday and Thursday, eight months after their historic summit in Singapore, the first between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.

At the time, they pledged to work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, but their vague agreement has produced few results. U.S. Democratic senators and security officials have warned Trump against cutting a deal that would do little to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

Trump, speaking in Washington on the eve of his departure for Vietnam, said he believed he saw eye to eye with Kim and that they had developed “a very, very good relationship”.

In a tweet on Monday, Trump stressed the benefits to North Korea if it gave up its nuclear weapons.

“With complete Denuclearization, North Korea will rapidly become an Economic Powerhouse. Without it, just more of the same. Chairman Kim will make a wise decision!”

Vietnamese police leave their headquarters to patrol ahead of the upcoming North Korea-U.S. summit in Hanoi, Vietnam February 25, 2019. Doan Tan/VNA via REUTERS

Vietnamese police leave their headquarters to patrol ahead of the upcoming North Korea-U.S. summit in Hanoi, Vietnam February 25, 2019. Doan Tan/VNA via REUTERS

A South Korean presidential spokesman told reporters in Seoul the two sides might agree to a formal end of the 1950-1953 Korean War, which the North has long called for as a major step towards normalizing ties.

“The possibility is there,” the spokesman, Kim Eui-kyeom told a briefing in Seoul when asked if an end-of-war declaration was on the agenda.

In a speech on Sunday night, Trump appeared to play down any hope of a major breakthrough, saying he would be happy as long as North Korea maintained its pause on weapons testing.

“I’m not in a rush. I don’t want to rush anybody,” he said. “I just don’t want testing. As long as there’s no testing, we’re happy.”

Trump is expected to leave for Vietnam at about 12:30 p.m. EST (1730 GMT).

North Korea conducted its last nuclear test, its sixth, in September 2017. It last tested an intercontinental ballistic missile in November 2017.

Before that freeze, the North conducted a series of tests that it says has given it powerful nuclear bombs and missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

The United States has for years demanded North Korea’s complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization before any concessions will be granted. North Korea denounced that stance as unilateral and “gangster-like”.

But in recent days, Trump has signaled a possible softening, saying he would love to be able to remove tough sanctions if there was meaningful progress on denuclearization.

Trump said he and Kim expected to make progress at the summit. He scoffed at critics of his handling of North Korea, and added that Chinese President Xi Jinping has been supportive of U.S. efforts.

A man walks past a banner depicting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of the North Korea-U.S. summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, February 25, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

A man walks past a banner depicting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of the North Korea-U.S. summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, February 25, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

LIMITED DEAL?

Speculation that the Trump administration is open to a limited deal at the summit has raised expectations the two sides might finally declare an end to a technical state of hostilities that has existed on the Korean peninsula since the Korean War ended with an armistice, not a truce.

In return, North Korea could allow international inspectors to observe the dismantlement of its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, analysts say.

The United States could also agree to opening U.S.-North Korea liaison offices and allow some inter-Korean projects, provided the North takes steps toward denuclearization.

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, who supports opening up North Korea, praised both Trump and Kim in comments in Seoul, and said those opposed to better ties on the peninsula, and between North Korea and the United States, should “discard such biased perspectives”.

Trump is scheduled to arrive in Vietnam on Tuesday evening, Vietnam’s foreign ministry said. On Wednesday morning, Trump is set to meet Vietnam President Nguyen Phu Trong, who is also general secretary of the ruling Communist Party, the ministry said.

Vietnam has released few details about arrangements for the summit including its specific venue or timing.

Kim is making his way to Vietnam by train and passed through the Chinese city of Hengyang at about 3.30 p.m. (0730 GMT), South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

That means he would be due to arrive in Vietnam early on Tuesday. No official details of his travel have been released.

(Additional reporting by Mai Nguyen and Josh Smith in HANOI and David Brunnstrom in WASHINGTON; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Bill Berkrot)

North Korea may have made more nuclear bombs, but threat reduced: study

FILE PHOTO - People carry flags in front of statues of North Korea founder Kim Il Sung (L) and late leader Kim Jong Il during a military parade marking the 70th anniversary of North Korea's foundation in Pyongyang, North Korea, September 9, 2018. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

By David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – North Korea has continued to produce bomb fuel while in denuclearization talks with the United States and may have produced enough in the past year to add as many as seven nuclear weapons to its arsenal, according to a study released just weeks before a planned second summit between the North Korean leader and U.S. President Donald Trump.

However, the country’s freeze in nuclear and missile testing since 2017 mean that North Korea’s weapons program probably poses less of a threat than it did at the end of that year, the report by Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation found.

Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the U.S. Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico who is now at Stanford and was one of the report’s authors, told Reuters analysis of satellite imagery showed North Korea’s production of bomb fuel continued in 2018.

He said spent fuel generated from operation of the 5 megawatt reactor at its main nuclear plant at Yongbyon from 2016-18 appeared to have been reprocessed starting in May and would have produced an estimated 5-8 kg of weapons-grade plutonium.

This combined with production of perhaps 150 kg of highly enriched uranium may have allowed North Korea to increase the number of weapons in its arsenal by between five and seven, the Stanford report said.

Hecker’s team had estimated the size of North Korea’s arsenal in 2017 at 30, bringing a possible current total of 37 weapons. U.S. intelligence is not certain how many nuclear warheads North Korea has. Last year, the Defense Intelligence Agency was at the high end with an estimate of about 50 nuclear warheads, while analysts have given a range of 20-60.

The Stanford report said that while North Korea was likely to have continued work on warhead miniaturization and to ensure they can stand up to delivery via intercontinental ballistic missiles, the halt in testing greatly limited its ability to make such improvements.

“They have continued the machinery to turn out plutonium and highly enriched uranium,” Hecker said, “but it also depends on weaponization – the design, build and test and then the delivery.

“When they ended missile testing, those things rolled backwards. So when I look at the whole spectrum, to me North Korea … is less dangerous today than it was at the end of 2017, in spite of the fact that they may have made another five to seven weapons worth of nuclear material.”

The Stanford experts said it was their assessment that “North Korea cannot deliver a nuclear warhead with any measure of confidence to the U.S. mainland,” although Hecker said its nuclear weapons were a real threat to Japan and South Korea.

Hecker said it was understandable that North Korea should have continued its weapons work, given that it had reached no specific agreement in the latest talks with the United States to stop that work.

U.S. Secretary State Mike Pompeo told Congress in July that North Korea was continuing to produce fuel for nuclear bombs in spite of its pledge to denuclearize, even as he argued – as he has continued to do – that the Trump administration was making progress in talks with Pyongyang.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged during an unprecedented first summit with Trump last June to work towards denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

There has been little concrete progress since, but in September, Kim expressed willingness to take steps, including the permanent dismantlement of nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, in return for “corresponding measures” by the United States.

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun held three days of talks in Pyongyang last week to prepare for a second Trump-Kim summit due to be held in Hanoi on Feb. 27 and 28. He said before the talks they would include discussion of corresponding steps North Korea has demanded.

Trump described those talks as “very productive” but the State Department has offered no sign of progress and Biegun and his counterpart have agreed to meet again before the summit.

(Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

U.S. commander says North Korea unlikely to give up all its nuclear weapons

FILE PHOTO: Admiral Philip S. Davidson (L), Commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, meets with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Abe's office in Tokyo, Japan June 21, 2018. Kazuhiro Nogi/Pool via Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Weeks before a second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the top U.S. military commander for Asia on Tuesday echoed an intelligence assessment that North Korea is unlikely to give up all its nuclear weapons.

Although he expressed optimism about the Feb. 27-28 summit in verbal testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Admiral Philip Davidson, head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, expressed doubts about North Korean intentions in his written submission to the panel.

“USINDOPACOM’s assessment on North Korean denuclearization is consistent with the Intelligence Community position. That is, we think it is unlikely that North Korea will give up all of its nuclear weapons or production capabilities, but seeks to negotiate partial denuclearization in exchange for U.S. and international concessions,” it said.

Last month, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told Congress he believed it was unlikely North Korea would give up all its nuclear weapons and had continued activity inconsistent with pledges to denuclearize.

Trump has been eager to hold a second summit with Kim even though their first meeting in Singapore in June produced only vague commitments from the North Koreans and little concrete progress since.

Trump and Kim’s next summit is to be held in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Trump says time, location for summit with North Korea’s Kim has been set

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to deliver remarks on border security and the partial shutdown of the U.S. government in the Diplomatic Room at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 19, 2019. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday a time and location for his second summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un had been agreed upon, but he did not give any details and said they would be announced next week.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview on Wednesday he was dispatching a team to prepare for the summit to be held somewhere in Asia in late in February.

The last summit, which took place in Singapore in June, was the first such event between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.

The meeting resulted in a vague commitment by Kim to work toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. But he has not yet taken concrete steps to that end, in Washington’s view.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump said he was making tremendous progress with North Korea, but provided no evidence.

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by David Alexander and Sonya Hepinstall)

North Korea says it wants peace, relations with U.S.

Directional signs bearing North Korean and U.S. flags are seen near the demilitarized zone in Paju, South Korea, June 12, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – North Korea said on Tuesday that relations with the United States will develop “wonderfully at a fast pace” if Washington responds to its efforts on denuclearization with trustworthy measures and practical actions.

North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Han Tae Song, told the U.N.-sponsored Conference on Disarmament that Pyongyang would continue working to establish a “permanent and durable peace mechanism on the Korean peninsula”.

The landmark summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump last June produced a promise to work toward the complete denuclearization of the divided peninsula. Progress since then has been patchy.

Washington is demanding concrete action, such as a full disclosure of North Korea’s nuclear and missile facilities, before agreeing to key goals of Pyongyang – easing international sanctions and declaring an official end to the 1950-53 Korean War that ended with an armistice.

The summit had brought about a dramatic turn in relations that had been “the most hostile on earth” and contributed to ensuring peace and security on the peninsula, Han said..

He referred to the two leaders’ joint statement issued after their meeting in Singapore and Kim’s New Year’s Address, adding:

“Accordingly we declared that we would neither make and test nuclear weapons any longer nor use and proliferate them and we have taken various practical measures.

“If the U.S. responds to our efforts with trustworthy measures and corresponding practical actions, bilateral relations will develop wonderfully at a fast pace through the process of taking more definite and epoch-making steps,” he said.

Han told Reuters that he had no information on a possible second summit between Kim and Trump, which the White House has said would be held in late February without saying where.

“As we open a new year, we are determined to seize this hard-won unprecedented window of opportunity of diplomacy,” South Korea’s deputy ambassador Lee Jang-Keun told the Geneva forum on Tuesday.

“The recent announcement by the U.S. of holding a second U.S.-DPRK summit meeting in late February is another harbinger of hope,” he said.

South Korea’s foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha told Reuters at Davos last week that North Korea must make concrete pledges toward curbing its nuclear weapons program, such as dismantling its main nuclear complex and allowing international inspections to confirm the process, when leader Kim meets Trump as soon as next month.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Angus MacSwan)

Next U.S.-North Korea summit must give concrete results: Seoul

By Soyoung Kim and Alessandra Galloni

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) – A planned second summit next month between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un must “deliver concrete results on denuclearization”, South Korea’s top diplomat said on Wednesday.

Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told the World Economic Forum in Davos that the two leaders should make “really great big strides” on the road to denuclearization and lasting peace on the Korean peninsula, in line with international demands.

Trump and Kim met in Singapore last June for an unprecedented summit, producing a promise to work toward “complete denuclearization” of the peninsula, but the two sides have since struggled to agree how to implement the pledge.

Critics of U.S. efforts say that summit only boosted Kim’s international stature while doing little to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal that now threatens the United States.

After Trump met Pyongyang’s top nuclear negotiator, Kim Yong Chol, in Washington on Friday, the White House announced that the second summit would take place in late February.

The two sides have given no sign of having narrowed their differences over U.S. demands that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons program and Pyongyang’s demands for a lifting of economic sanctions and a formal end to the Korean War.

North and South Korea are still technically at war, given the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

The North Korean envoy’s recent visit to Washington has put nuclear talks “back on track”, Kang said in Davos. Details of the second summit would continue to be negotiated despite a partial government shutdown in Washington, she added.

Trump did not elaborate on the country chosen to host the summit, but Vietnam has been considered a leading candidate.

Earlier on Wednesday, Kang met with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum to discuss the planned second summit between Washington and Pyongyang, Seoul’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Kono agreed that “concrete results” will have to be made toward denuclearization while stressing that Japan expects close communication and coordination with South Korea on the nuclear negotiations regardless of “several pending issues” between the neighbors, the ministry said.

The two U.S. allies share a bitter history that includes Japan’s 1910-45 colonization of the Korean peninsula and the use of comfort women, Japan’s euphemism for girls and women, many of them Korean, forced to work in its wartime brothels.

The rows between the neighbors flared again in late October when South Korea’s Supreme Court ruled that Japan’s Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp must compensate South Koreans for their forced labor during World War Two. Japan maintains that the issue of forced labor was fully settled in 1965 when the two countries restored diplomatic ties, and has denounced the ruling as “unthinkable.”

Wartime history has long been a stumbling block for relations between the neighbors, sparking concern about regional efforts to rein in North Korea’s nuclear program.

In the latest escalation of tensions, a Japanese patrol aircraft made an “intimidating” pass over a South Korean warship on Wednesday, in what South Korea’s military said was a “clear provocation” toward a friendly neighbor.

Kang expressed “regret” over the incident and urged defense authorities from the two countries to resolve the issue soon, the foreign ministry said.

(Reporting by Soyoung Kim and Alessandra Galloni in DAVOS, Switzerland, Editing by Mark Bendeich, William Maclean)

North Korean base serves as missile headquarters: think tank

FILE PHOTO: Intercontinental ballistic missiles are seen at a grand military parade celebrating the 70th founding anniversary of the Korean People's Army at the Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, in this photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) February 9, 2018. KCNA/via REUTERS

By Katanga Johnson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – One of 20 undeclared ballistic missile operating bases in North Korea serves as a missile headquarters, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published on Monday.

“The Sino-ri missile operating base and the Nodong missiles deployed at this location fit into North Korea’s presumed nuclear military strategy by providing an operational-level nuclear or conventional first strike capability,” said the report co-authored by analyst Victor Cha.

The discovery of an undeclared missile headquarters comes three days after U.S. President Donald Trump said he “looks forward” to another summit to discuss denuclearization with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in late February.

Kim vowed to work toward denuclearization at his first summit with Trump in June, but there has since been little concrete progress.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CSIS, which last reported on the 20 missile bases in November, said the Sino-ri base has never been declared by North Korea and as a result “does not appear to be the subject of denuclearization negotiations.”

The report said that missile operating bases would presumably be subject to declaration, verification, and dismantlement in any nuclear deal.

“The North Koreans are not going to negotiate over things they don’t disclose,” said Cha.

“It looks like they’re playing a game. They’re still going to have all this operational capability,” even if they destroy their disclosed nuclear sites.

Located 132 miles (212 km) north of the demilitarized zone, the Sino-ri complex is a seven-square-mile (18-square-km) base that plays a key role in developing ballistic missiles capable of reaching South Korea, Japan, and even the U.S. territory of Guam in the Western Pacific, the report said.

It houses a regiment-sized unit equipped with Nodong-1 medium-range ballistic missiles, the report added.

Satellite images of the base from Dec. 27, 2018 show an entrance to an underground bunker, reinforced shelters and a headquarters, the report said.

In South Korea, the Sino-ri facility has long been known as one of the bases housing the Nodong, also called the Rodong, a medium-range missile based on Soviet-era Scud technology that the North began deploying in the mid-1990s.

“It is a facility we’ve been monitoring with interest, in cooperation with the United States,” Kim Joon-rak, a spokesman for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news briefing on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Katanga Johnson; Additional reporting by Hyonhee Shin in SEOUL; Editing by Chris Sanders, Sandra Maler and Darren Schuettler)

North Korea called ‘extraordinary threat’ in Trump missile defense review

FILE PHOTO: Intercontinental ballistic missiles are seen at a grand military parade celebrating the 70th founding anniversary of the Korean People's Army at the Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, in this photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) February 9, 2018. KCNA/via REUTERS

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump is due to unveil a revamped missile defense strategy on Thursday that singles out North Korea as an ongoing “extraordinary threat,” seven months after he declared that the nuclear threat had been eliminated.

“While a possible new avenue to peace now exists with North Korea, it continues to pose an extraordinary threat and the United States must remain vigilant,” the report said in its executive summary, which was reviewed by Reuters ahead of its release on Thursday.

The Missile Defense Review is a sweeping examination of efforts to shield America from missile threats. It singles out concerns about advancing capabilities by North Korea, Iran, Russia and China.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by James Dalgleish)