Top U.S. envoy warns against weapons tests

SEOUL — The top U.S. envoy on North Korea warned Monday that if Pyongyang conducted a major weapons test in the coming days as feared, it would be “most unhelpful,” as Washington tried to deescalate tensions with the country.

“We are fully aware of the strong potential for North Korea to conduct a major provocation in the days ahead,” Stephen Biegun, Washington’s top representative on North Korea, said during a news conference in Seoul. “Such an action will be most unhelpful in achieving a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

Biegun, who was recently also appointed the State Department’s No. 2 official, met with senior South Korean officials in Seoul on Monday amid signs that North Korea was preparing to launch a satellite or flighttest an intercontinental ballistic missile.

In the past 10 days, the country has conducted two tests that it called “very important” or “crucial” to improve what it called its “strategic nuclear deterrent.”

Officials and analysts in the region say those tests — at its missile engine and satellitelaunch sites near the border with China — most likely involved a new booster engine and other technologies used to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile. That is raising fears that the North is moving rapidly toward reactivating its longrange nuclear missile program, whose advancement led to a crisis with Washington two years ago.

North Korea has resumed its weapons activities while warning that it would abandon diplomacy and might restart nuclear and longrange missile tests if Washington doesn’t make more concessions, such as lifting sanctions, by Dec. 31.

On Monday, Biegun dismissed that deadline, while stressing that the United States was ready for serious negotiations to produce a denuclearization deal that could satisfy both Washington and Pyongyang.

“Let me be absolutely clear: The United States does not have a deadline,” he said.

But he also appealed to his counterparts in Pyongyang.

“It is time for us to do our jobs,” he said of efforts to reach a deal on denuclearization. “Let’s get this done. We are here, and you know how to reach us.”

There has been speculation that Biegun was hoping to meet with North Korean officials on the interKorean border this week. And his appeal Monday was seen as an open invitation to such a meeting, but there was no immediate response from North Korea.

North Korea leader Kim Jong Un is widely expected to use a meeting of his Workers’ Party’s Central Committee, scheduled for this month, and his annual New Year’s Day speech to reveal his policy options.