Back to business in South Korea

Defense Secretary James Mattis (left), with Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, holds a news conference Tuesday at the Pentagon, where he said there were no plans to halt any new joint military exercises with South Korea after several large-scale maneuvers were suspended with great fanfare earlier after President Donald Trump’s June summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has no plans to suspend additional joint military exercises on the Korean Peninsula, Defense Secretary James Mattis said Tuesday, in another indication of trouble in the diplomatic thaw between Washington and Pyongyang. “We took the step to suspend several of the largest exercises as a good-faith measure coming out of the Singapore summit,” Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon, referring to President Donald Trump’s decision to shelve large-scale drills with South Korea after meeting with Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader, in June. “We have no plans at this time to suspend any more exercises,” Mattis said. He added that “there are ongoing exercises all the time on the peninsula” but that “North Korea could not in any way misinterpret those as somehow breaking faith with the negotiation.” “So the exercises continue,” Mattis said. Trump’s decision in June to suspend the annual military exercises that had long been planned with South Korea took even senior U.S. military officials by surprise. The defense secretary’s comments, at a rare news conference at the Pentagon, add to rising tensions between the United States and North Korea that escalated over the weekend. State media outlets in North Korea criticized the United States for what it called “extremely provocative and dangerous military moves” in Pacific waters. Last week, Trump announced that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would cancel his most recent plan to travel to Pyongyang. Pompeo’s spokesman Heather Nauert on Tuesday declined to comment on reports that a tough-worded letter from an aide to Kim had derailed what would have been Pompeo’s fourth visit to North Korea this year. Nauert said the president and his national security team, including Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, had judged that “now is not the right time to travel.” However, she said diplomatic efforts are “ongoing” though she could not say whether there had been communications between the State Department and North Korea since Friday. She cited a statement from Pompeo that despite the decision to delay the trip, “America stands ready to engage when it is clear that Chairman Kim stands ready to deliver on the commitments that he made at the Singapore summit with President Trump to completely denuclearize North Korea.” “The world is united behind the need for Chairman Kim to fulfill that commitment,” Nauert said. Trump’s policy toward Pyongyang has swung back and forth over the past year, from a name-calling Twitter spat with Kim to an unprecedented rapprochement at the face-to-face meeting in Singapore. More recently, however, the Trump administration is increasingly expressing frustration over the slow pace of diplomatic negotiations and fears that North Korea is not making substantive moves toward dismantling and ending its nuclear weapons program — as Washington said was promised during the meeting in Singapore. In announcing the cancellation of the military exercises back in June, Trump called them “provocative” and costly. Mattis said Tuesday that the cancellation was done as a “good-faith effort” to help the diplomatic negotiations. Separately, Japan said Tuesday that it needs to bolster its missile defenses and its alliance with the United States in an annual defense review that judged North Korea to still be a serious threat that has not taken concrete steps to denuclearize. The defense paper, approved Tuesday by the Cabinet, said Japan must add to its missile defense capabilities to be fully prepared while watching if North Korea keeps its promise. North Korea tested intercontinental ballistic missiles last year, including launching some over Japan, and it has deployed several hundred shorter-range Rodong missiles capable of hitting Japan. The defense paper also says Pyongyang likely has made miniaturized nuclear warheads it can place atop ballistic missiles, an advancement of its nuclear capability that North Korea has claimed to have achieved. North Korea has increased the range, accuracy and versatility of its missiles and diversified its launch sites and methods over the past few years. In addition to the three nuclear tests the North has conducted since 2016, it also has carried out more than 40 missile tests in that time, according to the paper. “Its military actions have become an unprecedentedly serious and imminent threat to Japan’s national security,” the paper said. “There is no change in our basic recognition about the threat of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles.” It was “significant” that Kim promised to pursue denuclearization of the peninsula but it is necessary to watch what North Korea does to scrap its nuclear weapons and missiles, the report said.