Sabers rattle amid Korean standoff, WH to brief senators

WASHINGTON North Korea conducted livefire artillery drills and a U.S. guided-missile submarine arrived in South Korea on Tuesday, as the Trump administration prepared an extraordinary White House briefing for senators on the escalating nuclear threat.

Fears North Korea could mark the 85th anniversary of its military’s founding with a nuclear test explosion or a ballistic missile launch proved unfounded. But the unpredictable communist nation rattled its saber all the same, with drills that served as a reminder of the threat it poses below the border to U.S.-allied South Korea.

The exercise in the area of east coast city of Wonsan involved 300 to 400 artillery pieces, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said. An official from Seoul’s Defence Ministry couldn’t confirm such details.

North Korea’s official media reported early Wednesday that leader Kim Jong Un personally observed the exercises. The drills near the port city of Wonsan on the east coast reportedly included submarine torpedo-attacks on mock enemy warships “while fighters and bombers made zero feet flight above the sea to drop bombs on the targets,” the Korean Central News Agency said.

President Donald Trump has sent more U.S. military assets to the region in a show of force while leaning on China to exert economic pressure on its wayward ally. Chinese President Xi Jinping, who spoke to Trump on Monday, is urging restraint from both Pyongyang and Washington.

In Washington, top Trump administration officials are due to brief the entire U.S. Senate on Wednesday. A rapid tempo of North Korean weapons testing in the past year has pushed Kim Jong Un’s authoritarian nation closer to developing a nuclear-tipped missile that could reach the U.S. mainland.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham voiced confidence Tuesday that Trump won’t allow North Korea to reach that point. Graham, a defence hawk who dined with Trump on Monday night, said the North should not underestimate the president’s resolve.

“We are probably in one of the most challenging situations since the Cuban missile crisis,” Sen. John McCain told a congressional hearing Tuesday.