- John Kerry calls Kim Jong-Un 'reckless'
- Ban Ki-moon warns nuclear threats are not a game
- North set to re-open nuclear reactor
THE United States has vowed to defend itself and its regional allies after North Korea again stepped up its warlike rhetoric and the UN warned that the crisis could spin out of control.
Standing side-by-side with his counterpart, South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, US Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday denounced "an extraordinary amount of unacceptable rhetoric from the North Korean government in the last days.
"Let me be perfectly clear here today. The United States will defend and protect ourselves and our treaty ally, the Republic of Korea,'' Kerry said, also vowing to stand by Japan as the latest crisis with Pyongyang unfolds.
Kerry was speaking after the North triggered renewed alarm by warning it would reopen the Yongbyon reactor - its source of weapons-grade plutonium - in the latest in a series of increasingly bellicose threats.
He said the recent posturing by new North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un was provocative as well as "dangerous and reckless''.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has told his South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se that the US will defend itself and its regional neighbours against North Korean threats.
Yun, who is on his first visit to Washington since becoming foreign minister in the new government of President Park Geun-hye, renewed Seoul's commitment to working with Washington.
"We agree to further strengthen credible and robust deterrence vis-a-vis North Korea's nuclear and conventional provocations,'' Yun said.
But UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned the crisis could spiral out of control, stressing that "nuclear threats are not a game.
"The current crisis has already gone too far. ... Things must begin to calm down,'' the former South Korean foreign minister told a press conference in Andorra, adding that negotiations were the only viable way forward.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un discusses a strike plan with North Korean officers. The lettering on the map, , reads as "Strategic Forces' US Mainland Striking Plan". Picture: AFP
A Pyongyang government nuclear energy spokesman said the plans for Yongbyon would involve "readjusting and restarting'' all facilities at the complex, including a uranium enrichment plant and the five-megawatt reactor.
The North shut down the Yongbyon reactor in July 2007 under a six-nation aid-for-disarmament accord, and destroyed its cooling tower a year later.
Experts say it would take six months to get the reactor back up and running, after which it would be able to produce one bomb's worth of weapons-grade plutonium a year.
Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University, said Tuesday's nuclear initiative was different from the military bluster of recent weeks.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has said that tensions had already soared too high on the Korean peninsula and warned Pyongyang against making nuclear threats.
"This goes beyond mere provocation. It's a strong, tangible move and perhaps the one that will force the US into the direct dialogue Pyongyang wants,'' Kim said.
UN chief Ban Ki=moon said he was "deeply troubled.... The current crisis has already gone too far".
"Nuclear threats are not a game... things must begin to calm down.
"There is no need for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to be on a collision course with the international community," he said after Pyongyang announced it would restart a nuclear reactor to feed its atomic weapons program.
The Korean peninsula has been caught in a cycle of escalating tensions since the North's February nuclear test, which followed a long-range rocket launch in December.
Ban said he feared an escalation in the crisis.
"I'm convinced that nobody intends to attack the DPRK because of a disagreement about its political system or foreign policy. However I'm afraid that others will respond firmly to any direct military provocation," Ban said.
"Dialogue and negotiations are the only way to resolve the current crisis."
Ban said he was "deeply concerned" about the wider effects of tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
"Peace and stability in and around the Korean Peninsula has very important regional and even global implications," he said.
"I urge again the authorities of the DPRK to fully abide by the relevant Security Council resolutions and refrain from making further provocative measures," Ban said.
The deepening crisis comes as Prime Minister Julia Gillard departs fro China where she will raise the issue with Beijing's leaders.
China is North Korea's only ally in the region.
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