reducing rhetoric on North Korea

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"We accused the North Koreans of amping things up, now we are worried we did the same thing," one Defense Department official said. official first told CNN that communications intercepts indicated North Korea may be planning to launch a mobile ballistic missile in the coming days or weeks.



Classified images and communications intercepts show that North Korea has moved up to two mobile missiles, launchers and fuel tanks to its East coast, another American official with knowledge of the matter told CNN.



South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwanjin told a parliamentary committee in Seoul that the activity signaled an imminent cheap northface jackets test firing or military drill, according to the semiofficial South Korean news agency Yonhap. official said it is believed any launch this time would be a test.



The activity is consistent with a Musudan missile, the official said. forces based on Guam.



As a vital ally to South Korea since the Korean war in the 1950s, the United States has pledged military backing to Seoul in the event of an attack by North Korea.



In addition, North Korea has been developing nuclear weapons technology, raising concerns of rapid proliferation in the region and even a possible nuclear strike where to get north face jackets cheap by Pyongyang.



The fraught situation on the Korean Peninsula stems from the North's latest longrange rocket launch in December and underground nuclear test in February. sanctions on North Korea and took part in joint military exercises with South Korea, prompting Kim Jong Un's government to ratchet up its threats in recent weeks.



That caused the United States to display its military strength in the annual drills taking place now, flying B2 stealth bombers capable of carrying conventional or nuclear weapons, as well as Cold Warera B52s and F22 Raptor stealth fighters over South Korea.



On Thursday, a North Korean army official warned that "the moment of explosion is approaching fast."



"No one can say a war will break out in Korea or not and whether it will break out today or tomorrow," said the spokesman for the General Staff of the North's Korean People's Army (KPA). administration and military warmongers keen to encroach upon the DPRK's sovereignty and bring down its dignified social system with brigandish logic," the KPA spokesman added in a statement published by the staterun Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).



A spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council said Thursday that the United States continues to closely monitor the situation.



"Threats and provocative actions will not bring North Korea the security, international respect, and economic development it seeks," said the NSC spokeswoman, Caitlin Hayden. rhetoric about North Korea. military hardware were being deployed in the region. news releases and statements on North Korea were generating world headlines and therefore provoking a Pyongyang response.



"We are absolutely trying to ratchet back the rhetoric," the official said. "We become part of the cycle. We allowed that to happen."



At the State Department, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Thursday the United States needed to take the defensive steps it did in view of North Korea's threats, but she focused on a diplomatic solution available if Pyongyang changed its behavior.



"It was the ratcheting up of tensions on the DPRK side that caused us to need to shore up our own defense posture. We have done that," Nuland said. "But we have also been saying all the way through that this does not need to get hotter, that we can change course here if the DPRK will begin to come back into compliance with its international obligations, will begin to cool things down, take a pause."