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UN envoy heads to North Korea as nuclear tensions heat up

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BEIJING — A senior United Nations (UN) official traveled to North Korea on Tuesday for a rare visit aimed at defusing soaring tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

Jeffrey Feltman’s visit — the first by a UN diplomat of his rank since 2010 — comes less than a week after North Korea said it testfired a new interconti­nental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the United States.

Mr. Feltman arrived in a UN-flagged car at Beijing’s internatio­nal airport in the morning before North Korea’s Air Koryo flight took off for Pyongyang in the early afternoon.

His trip comes a day after the United States and South Korea launched their biggest-ever joint air exercise — maneuvers slammed by Pyongyang as an “all-out provocatio­n.”

The five- day Vigilant Ace drill involves 230 aircraft, including F- 22 Raptor stealth jet fighters, and tens of thousands of troops, Seoul’s air force said.

Mr. Feltman, the UN’s under secretary general for political affairs, arrived in China on Monday as Beijing is one of the few transit points to North Korea in the world.

He met with a Chinese vice foreign minister while in Beijing.

China, which is Pyongyang’s sole major diplomatic and military ally, has called on the United States to freeze military drills and North Korea to halt weapons tests to calm tensions.

Once in the North, Mr. Feltman will discuss “issues of mutual interest and concern” with officials, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, adding he was unable to say whether Mr. Feltman will meet with the reclusive state’s leader Kim Jong-Un.

It will be Mr. Feltman’s first visit to North Korea since he took off ice five years ago.

The UN Security Council has hit the isolated and impoverish­ed North with a package of sanctions over its increasing­ly powerful missile and nuclear tests, which have rattled Washington and its regional allies South Korea and Japan.

Pyongyang ramped up already high tensions on the Korean Peninsula five days ago when it announced it had successful­ly test-fired a new ICBM, which it says brings the whole of the continenta­l United States within range.

Analysts say it is unclear whether the missile survived reentry into the earth’s atmosphere or could successful­ly deliver a warhead to its target — key technologi­cal hurdles for Pyongyang.

A Cathay Pacific crew flying from San Francisco to Hong Kong said they spotted what they believed was the missile, with one airline official saying the crew described seeing it “blow up and fall apart.”

In recent years, Pyongyang has accelerate­d its drive to bring together nuclear and missile technology capable of threatenin­g the US, which it accuses of hostility.

US President Donald J. Trump has engaged in months of tit-for-tat rhetoric with Mr. Kim, pejorative­ly dubbing him “Little Rocket Man” and a “sick puppy.”

‘MOTH FLYING INTO FIRE’

North Korean state media has hit back with a flurry of its own colorful insults, calling Mr. Trump a “dotard,” a “frightened dog” and a “gangster.”

In a new editorial on Tuesday, North Korean state media blasted the joint US- South Korean drills as going “beyond the danger line” adding the two allies were like “a group of tiger moths flying into fire only to perish in it.”

As well as featuring the latest generation of stealth fighters, this year’s war games involve simulated precision attacks on the North’s military installati­ons, including its missile launch sites and artillery units, Yonhap news agency said, citing unnamed Seoul sources.

Over the weekend Mr. Trump’s National Security Adviser HR McMaster told a security forum that the potential for war with the North “is increasing every day.”

But some Trump advisers say US military options are limited when Pyongyang could launch an artillery barrage on the South Korean capital — only around 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the heavily-fortified border and home to 10 million people.

Tokyo’s parliament on Monday slammed the North’s weapons program as an “imminent threat.” Last week’s missile landed in Japan’s economic waters.

China’s foreign ministry warned that the situation on the Korean peninsula remained “highly sensitive” and called on all sides to “do more things to ease the tension and avoid provoking each other.”

 ??  ?? UN Undersecre­tary General for political affairs Jeffrey Feltman (R) arrives to take a flight for North Korea at the Internatio­nal Airport of Beijing on Dec. 5.
UN Undersecre­tary General for political affairs Jeffrey Feltman (R) arrives to take a flight for North Korea at the Internatio­nal Airport of Beijing on Dec. 5.

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