News Story: IAEA chief to visit S. Korea to discuss N. Korean nuke issue

SEOUL, Sept. 27 (Yonhap) -- The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will visit South Korea this week to discuss ways to resolve North Korea's prohibited nuclear weapons development, the foreign ministry here said Wednesday.

During his visit from Thursday to Saturday, Director General Yukiya Amano will meet with Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha to discuss the North Korean issue and cooperation between the IAEA and South Korea, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"Director General Amano's South Korean visit, which comes after North Korea's sixth nuclear test and other provocations, will be an opportunity to discuss in depth how the two parties could collaborate to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue," the ministry said in a statement.

Read the full story at YonhapNews

News Story: Iran tests new medium-range missile, defying US warnings

By Eric RANDOLPH

Iran said on Saturday that it had successfully tested a new medium-range missile in defiance of warnings from Washington that such activities were grounds for abandoning their landmark nuclear deal.

State television carried footage of the launch of the Khoramshahr missile, which was first displayed at a high-profile military parade in Tehran on Friday.

It also carried in-flight video from the nose cone of the missile, which has a range of 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles) and can carry multiple warheads.

"As long as some speak in the language of threats, the strengthening of the country's defence capabilities will continue and Iran will not seek permission from any country for producing various kinds of missile," Defence Minister Amir Hatami said in a staement.

The test comes at the end of a heated week of diplomacy at the UN General Assembly in New York, where US President Donald Trump again accused Iran of destabilising the Middle East, calling it a "rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed and chaos".

Previous Iranian missile launches have triggered US sanctions and accusations that they violate the spirit of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers.

Read the full story at SpaceDaily

Related Story:

• Iran's Rouhani vows to strengthen missiles despite US warnings

News Report: North Korea Threatens Nuclear Test in Pacific

Brian Padden

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — North Korea indicated it may soon test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean after the country’s leader Kim Jong Un warned he would match U.S. President Donald Trump’s threatening words and new sanctions with equally provocative action.

The North Korean leader responded Friday to Trump’s United Nations address this week, when the U.S. leader referred to Kim as a “Rocket Man” on a suicide mission, called the government in Pyongyang a “depraved regime,” and said if forced to defend itself or its allies, the Untied States will “totally destroy North Korea.”

In a statement directly attributed to the North Korean leader, Kim on Friday said Trump displayed “mentally deranged behavior” with his threat to destroy a sovereign nation. He called the U.S. president a “rogue and a gangster,” and promised to answer Trump’s insults with the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history.”

“Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say,” said Kim in statement that was released by the North Korean state news agency KCNA. The agency released a photo of the North Korean leader reading the statement.

News Report: Trump Says He's Decided Whether US Should Stay in Iran Nuclear Deal

U.S. President Donald Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday he has made a decision on whether to pull the United States out of the 2015 international pact curbing Iran's nuclear weapons development.

Trump declined to say what his decision is, but the U.S. rift with Iran took center stage at the United Nations General Assembly, a day after he denounced Tehran as "an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed and chaos."

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in his speech Wednesday, told the annual gathering of world leaders at the 193-nation organization that Tehran does not tolerate threats from anyone and was unmoved by Trump's complaints. Rouhani called them "ugly, ignorant words."

In an apparent reference to the U.S. leader, Rouhani said "destruction" of the nuclear deal "by 'rogue' newcomers to the world of politics will never impede Iran’s course of progress and advancement.

News Report: Critics of Iran Nuclear Deal Debate the Way Forward

Daniel Schearf

NEW YORK — During his speech Tuesday to the U.N. General Assembly, U.S. President Donald Trump made his disdain for the nuclear agreement with Iran absolutely clear.

"The Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into," Trump said. "Frankly, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States, and I don't think you've heard the last of it, believe me."

On the sidelines of the UNGA, some prominent critics of the Iran nuclear deal endorsed his position Tuesday, debating how best to move forward to prevent Tehran from becoming a nuclear weapons state, while underscoring concerns about Tehran's links with North Korea.

Participants in the United Against Nuclear Iran conference (UANI) agreed they see flaws in the 2015 deal, which offered incentives to Iran in return for guarantees that it would not develop nuclear weapons. But speakers disagreed on whether the United States should attempt to renegotiate and expand the deal negotiated under former President Barack Obama, or scrap it altogether.

News Story: UN nuclear watchdog defends Iran deal

The UN atomic watchdog hit back Monday at US criticism of the Iran nuclear deal, insisting its inspections there are the world's toughest and that Tehran is sticking to the accord.

"The nuclear-related commitments undertaken by Iran under (the 2015 accord) are being implemented," International Atomic Energy Agency head Yukiya Amano told reporters.

"The verification regime in Iran is the most robust regime which is currently existing. We have increased the inspection days in Iran, we have increased inspector numbers... and the number of images has increased," he said in Vienna.

"From a verification point of view, it is a clear and significant gain."

US President Donald Trump has called the agreement between Iran and six major powers reducing its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief "the worst deal ever negotiated".

Trump has to certify in mid-October whether he believes Iran is abiding by the nuclear deal and that sticking to it is vital to US national security interests.

If, as seems increasingly likely, Trump decides not to give the green light, Congress will then have 60 days to debate whether to re-impose sanctions on Iran.

Read the full story at SpaceDaily

News Story: IAEA says indications show DPRK's nuclear reactor could be operating

VIENNA, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- The UN nuclear agency on Monday said the Yongbyon Experimental Nuclear Power Plant reactor could be operating according to the indications of the plant.

In a statement to the board governor meeting in Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it was concerned over the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s latest nuclear test.

"There were indications at the Yongbyon Experimental Nuclear Power Plant suggesting that the reactor was being operated. At the Yongbyon Nuclear Fuel Rod Fabrication Plant, there were indications consistent with the use of the reported centrifuge enrichment facility," said Yukiya Amano, head of IAEA.

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Story: UN Security Council condemns DPRK missile launch

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Tuesday strongly condemned Monday's missile launch by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) as well as several launches on Friday, demanding the country immediately cease such "outrageous actions."

"The Security Council expresses its grave concern that the DPRK is, by conducting such a launch over Japan as well as its recent actions and public statements, deliberately undermining regional peace and stability and has caused grave security concerns around the world," said the Security Council in a president's statement, which was released after closed-door consultations by council members.

The Security Council stressed that those DPRK actions are not just a threat to the region, but to all UN member states, demanding the country comply with relevant Security Council resolutions and not conduct any further launches using ballistic missile technology.

It also requested that the DPRK should abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs in a "complete, verifiable and irreversible manner" and not conduct any future nuclear tests or any further provocation.

The council called on all UN member states to "strictly, fully and expeditiously" implement all relevant Security Council resolutions concerning the DPRK, reiterating the importance of maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia at large.

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Story: Increased activity, new construction seen at N. Korea's Yongbyon nuclear research site - IAEA

SEOUL, Aug. 26 (Yonhap) -- North Korea is continuing to produce fissile material for its nuclear weapons at its main nuclear research site in Yongbyon and new construction is underway to readjust the facilities, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in an annual report.

"There were indications consistent with the reactor's operation, including steam discharges and the outflow of cooling water," the IAEA said in a recent report, titled "Application of Safeguards in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."

"Based on past operational cycles, the current cycle could be expected to continue until late 2017," the report said, referring to a 5-megawatt experimental reactor at the research site.

"There were indications consistent with the use of the reported centrifuge enrichment facility located within the plant," the report also said, suggesting North Korea's continuing uranium enrichment. "Construction work was undertaken on a building that adjoins the reported centrifuge enrichment facility."

An increase in activity has also been monitored at the construction site for a light water reactor (LWR) on the compound, the report also said, suggesting progress in North Korea's ongoing development of indigenous light water reactor nuclear power station technology.

"There were indications in the LWR construction yard of an increase in activities consistent with the fabrication of certain reactor components ... Work to connect what appears to be the LWR's electrical switchyard with the electrical distribution network was completed," it noted.

Read the full story at YonhapNews

News Report: Russia Calls on North Korea to Return to Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime

Russia calls on North Korea to scrap nuclear and missile programs and to return to non-proliferation regime, within the framework of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said Saturday.

UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, the UN Security Council (UNSC) unanimously adopted the resolution tightening the sanctions imposed on North Korea. The document implies prohibition of imports of coal, iron, iron ore, lead and seafood from the Asian nation by the UN member states.

"The ballistic missiles, which were launched without warning from North Korea, are posing major risk to marine and air transport in the region as well as to the lives of ordinary civilians. We call on North Korean government to end the banned programs and to return to the NPT non-proliferation regime and the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] oversights, as well as to join the Chemical Weapons Convention," Nebenzya said at the UNSC session during the discussion of the adopted resolution.

This story first appeared on Sputnik & is reposted here with permission.

News Story: Downsizing S. Korea-U.S. military exercise is huge leverage for N. Korea - ex-diplomat

SEOUL, June 29 (Yonhap) -- The option of scaling down the annual joint military exercise between South Korea and the United States is huge leverage in reining in North Korea's nuclear weapons ambition, a former career diplomat said Thursday in a forum hosted by Yonhap News Agency.

"I think the scale of the South Korea-U.S. joint exercise could be revised down or readjusted" on the condition that North Korea stops its nuclear and missile tests, freezes its production of weapon-grade plutonium and uranium as well as shutting down its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon and letting the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect the country, Shin Bong-kil, formerly a diplomat of 30 years, said in a forum co-hosted by Yonhap News Agency and the Ministry of Unification.

The annual forum was held to discuss the Moon Jae-in administration's vision for peace and unification of the Korean Peninsula.

Referring to his attendance at a semi-governmental meeting held between North Korea and the South Korea-U.S. side a month earlier in Stockholm, Sweden, the former ambassador to Jordan, said that "From what I have heard there, the thing more painful for North Korea than international sanctions it is now facing was the joint South Korea-U.S. military exercise."

"Given that the recent talk of the possibility of (U.S.) pre-emptive attacks and a (South Korean contingency) operation to decapitate Kim Jong-un put North Korea in a state of sever alertness, it is huge leverage," Shin said, referring to the option of downsizing the joint Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises the allies carry out every spring in South Korea.

Read the full story at YonhapNews

News Story: IAEA chief expresses serious concern about N.K. nuclear program

NEW YORK, June 12 (Yonhap) -- The chief of the U.N. nuclear watchdog expressed serious concern Monday about North Korea's nuclear program and urged Pyongyang to come into compliance with its international obligations.

"I remain seriously concerned about the nuclear program of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano told a meeting in Vienna of the agency's Board of Governors, according to the U.N. website.

"It is deeply regrettable that the DPRK continues to show no sign that it is willing to comply with relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions," he said.

Read the full story at YonhapNews

News Report: Solving Korean Nuclear Problem by Analogy With Iran Impossible - Moscow

An official from the Russian Foreign Ministry said that it is impossible to resolve the issue of the North Korean nuclear program in the same way the Iranian nuclear problem was settled.

VIENNA (Sputnik) — It is possible to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula using political and diplomatic means, but not by an analogy with the solution of the Iranian nuclear problem, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's department for arms control, Mikhail Ulyanov, told Sputnik on Friday.

"The Iranian example showed that there is a real possibility to resolve even the most difficult issues through political and diplomatic means, if there is, firstly, a political will, and secondly, enough creativity for that," Ulyanov said.

Ulyanov noted that the situation on the Korean Peninsula was significantly different from the one around Iran's nuclear program, so it is impossible to fully copy the resolution process.

News Report: US' Urge to Get Rid of N Korea Could Destabilize Asia-Pacific Region

The recent launch of four ballistic missiles by North Korea has fueled a growing sense of urgency over Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile program.

Japan’s Prime Minister described the March 6 launches as "a new threat level,” while North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said the tests opened "a new birth" of the country’s rocket industry.

Yukiya Amano, director general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, told The Wall Street Journal that Pyongyang’s nuclear capacities are being ramped up.

“We can’t be optimistic. The situation is very bad. We don’t have a reason to be optimistic,” Amano complained.

News Story: North Korea nuclear programme in 'new phase' - IAEA

North Korea's uranium enrichment facility has doubled in size over the last few years, the UN's atomic watchdog chief has warned, as global tensions grow over Pyongyang's burgeoning nuclear weapons programme.

Yukiya Amano, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told the Wall Street Journal that the isolated state's nuclear capacities are being ramped up.

"The situation is very bad... It has gone into a new phase," Amano said, in the report published Monday. "All of the indications point to the fact that North Korea is making progress, as they declared."

International alarm over Pyongyang's military ambitions has risen after a series of missile launches and nuclear tests last year, and earlier this month it fired four rockets in what it described as practice for an attack on United States military bases in Japan.

The North, which also tested a powerful new rocket engine at the weekend to coincide with a trip to Asia by US Secretary State Rex Tillerson, has long coveted a missile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead.

Read the full story at SpaceDaily

News Story: Japan's Amano re-elected IAEA chief unopposed

VIENNA (Kyodo) -- Japan's Yukiya Amano was re-elected unopposed Wednesday as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Amano, appointed as IAEA chief in its Board of Governors' meeting, will stay on as director general of the IAEA for another four years from December, subject to approval by the IAEA's general assembly meeting in September.

A former Japanese diplomat, Amano will be tackling issues such as the nuclear program of North Korea that has been conducting nuclear tests in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. He has also been keen to strengthen the IAEA's engagement in overseeing Iran's nuclear agreement with global powers.

Read the full story at The Mainichi

News Report: A collection of DPRK Ballistic Missile Launch stories by Sputnik

With the launch of Ballistic Missiles by North Korea on the 6-Mar-2017, the Russian online news agency Sputnik has released several stories on the subject, read those below.

• North Korea Fires 'Unidentified Projectile' Into East Sea - Reports
• Seoul 'Strongly Condemns' Pyongyang's Rocket Launches
• Tokyo Plans to Discuss N Korea's Missile Launches With Moscow - Japan FM
• N Korea Missile Launches Highlight Security Threats - EU Foreign Policy Chief
• China Opposes North Korea Missile Launches - Foreign Ministry
• North Korea Launches Missiles to 'Divert Attention From Kim Jong Nam's Murder'
• Japan Self-Defense Forces Find Assumed Fragment of N Korean Missile
• Kremlin Voices Concern, Urges Restraint Over North Korea's Missile Launches
• N Korea Carries Out Multiple Ballistic Missiles Launches - Pentagon
• N. Korea Says Recent Missile Drills Aimed at Striking US Military Base in Japan
• UN Secretary-General: North Korea Missile Launches Undermine Regional Stability
• Trump, Abe Hold Phone Conversation Over North Korea Missile Launch
• Japan, US Leaders Agree to Hold 2+2 Format Talks Amid N. Korean Missile Launches

• Pentagon: Pyongyang's Tests Confirm Prudence of THAAD Deployment to S. Korea
• US Deploys THAAD Sysytem in South Korea

News Report: US Deploys First Elements of THAAD to South Korea

A THAAD Missile test launch

Ayaz Gul

WASHINGTON — The U.S. has deployed the first elements of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to South Korea to counter North Korea's aggressive behavior, U.S. Pacific command officials said late Monday.

"Continued provocative actions by North Korea, to include yesterday’s launch of multiple missiles, only confirm the prudence of our alliance decision last year to deploy THAAD to South Korea,” Admiral Harry Harris, the commander of U.S. Pacific Command, said.

Harris said the THAAD elements were deployed Monday to honor alliance commitments to South Korea and to help defend U.S. troops in the region, US allies and the American homeland.

The THAAD system is designed to intercept and destroy short- and medium-range ballistic missiles during flight.

North Korea fired four medium-range ballistic missiles Monday, three of which flew about 1,000 kilometers and landed in Japanese waters.

The U.S. Defense Department had called the launches a "very serious threat."

Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis said while the missiles did not pose a threat to North America, the U.S. was taking steps to increase its ability to defend against the missile launches.

News Story: Iran complying with nuclear deal, says UN watchdog

By Nina LAMPARSKI

Iran is complying with the landmark nuclear deal it sealed with major world powers in 2015, according to a report from the UN watchdog seen by AFP on Friday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency addressed key limits set under the agreement, which is under intense scrutiny after the election of US President Donald Trump.

The report said Iran is not pursuing construction of its existing heavy water research reactor and has not enriched uranium above an agreed 3.67 percent-limit.

And Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium -- which can be used for peaceful purposes, but when further processed for a nuclear weapon -- was 101.7 kilos (225 pounds), well below the agreed level of 300 kilos.

Senior diplomats said that Tehran recently came close to reaching the limit.

Read the full story at SpaceDaily

News Report: North Korea's Plutonium Reactor Likely Operating Again, Monitors Say

A U.S. research institute that monitors North Korean weapons development says the communist country has likely resumed operations at a plutonium reactor at its Yongbyon nuclear facility.

The website 38North.org posted commercial satellite images Friday that it said indicate Pyongyang is preparing to restart the reactor after previously recovering spent fuel rods, which can be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium.

The monitoring website, run by Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, said the images of the Yongbyon reactor show a water plume that is believed to mark the plant's cooling-water outlet, and is an indication the reactor is once again operating.

Without further data, it is impossible to estimate at what power level the reactor is running, the researchers said, although it could be considerable.