Kim dispatched Choe Ryong-hae, vice chairman of the country's top military body, to explain North Korea's recent actions but he got a lukewarm reception from his Chinese hosts, said the source, who has close ties to Beijing and Pyongyang.

North Korea's 30-year-old leader took power in December 2011 and has carried out two long-range rocket launches and a nuclear weapons test since then. He also embarked on a months-long campaign of threats against South Korea and the United States.

"(North) Korea has not mellowed," said the source, who did not attend the meetings but has since spoken to both sides to which he has regular access.

Choe, nominally a general but with no known military experience, is the Korean People's Army's top ideologue. He showed up in Beijing in full military regalia, in contrast to his suited Chinese counterparts.

Experts have said the three-day visit was an attempt by North Korea to mend fences with its only major diplomatic ally, which has been critical of Pyongyang.

After the meetings, in which Choe eventually held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korea promised to take "positive steps for peace" while China repeated its mantra of wanting "calm and restraint" on the Korean peninsula.

Beijing tried to convince Pyongyang to stop its nuclear and missile tests, which "put China in a difficult position and are not conducive to (North) Korea", the source said. China advised North Korea to focus on rebuilding its ruined economy instead, something it has said before.

North Korea's recent actions drew international condemnation and put Beijing under pressure, especially from Washington, to rein in Pyongyang. It also helped reinforce an American strategy of rebalancing its security policies toward the Asia-Pacific.

China is North Korea's biggest trade partner and aid donor. Choe was shown a special enterprise zone during his visit, but he did not raise the issue of aid during his talks, the source added.

Asked if Pyongyang had agreed to halt nuclear tests, the source said that for the North: "It hinges on necessity."

North Korea has repeatedly said it will never abandon its nuclear weapons, calling them its "treasured sword".

The source did not say if Beijing spelt out any consequences should the North conduct further tests.

Choe met officials from the Chinese government, the military and ruling Communist Party.

China has grown increasingly frustrated with Pyongyang. It agreed to new U.N. sanctions after Pyongyang's latest nuclear test in February, and Chinese banks have curbed business with their North Korean counterparts in the wake of U.S. sanctions on the country's main foreign exchange bank.

A former senior U.S. official said Beijing's insistence that North Korea halt testing would be in line with recent signs it was running out of patience with Pyongyang.

"What I've heard from talking to Chinese officials and American officials who are talking to them is that top Chinese officials now emphasize that the principal goal is to terminate the nuclear weapons programme of North Korea," the ex-official said.

"Usually, in the past that's been buried (by the Chinese)."

Choe presented a hand-written letter from Kim to Xi. Chinese media gave no details of its contents at the time, but the source close to Pyongyang and Beijing described it as "terse".

Kim stressed in his letter that "the traditional friendship created by the older generation of revolutionary leaders should not waver at any time", said the source.

China has backed North Korea since Mao Zedong sent Chinese troops to bolster Communist forces under then North Korean leader Kim Il-sung - Kim Jong-un's grandfather - during the 1950-53 Korean war.

The nuclear and rocket tests and verbal threats were partly aimed at forcing the United States and South Korea to sign a permanent peace treaty with North Korea to replace the armistice agreement that ended that conflict, the source said.

North Korea felt the reception Choe got was lukewarm, said the source. It was the most important visit to China by a North Korean delegation since the young Kim's uncle, a kingmaker among Pyongyang's ruling elite, visited Beijing in late 2012.

"There was no bear hug between Wang Jiarui and Choe when they met," the source noted, referring to the Chinese Communist Party's International Department minister, who is responsible for dealing with foreign political parties. Such greetings have been a tradition between North Korean and Chinese leaders, who once saw their relationship as "close as lips and teeth".

China has repeatedly urged North Korea to return to the so-called six-party talks, which are aimed at getting Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

Choe told the Chinese this format did not work. In 2009, Pyongyang said it would never return to the talks, which also included South Korea, the United States, Japan and Russia.

North Korea would instead seek bilateral talks with the various parties first, said the source, without elaborating.

Abandoning its nuclear weapons programme could not be a prerequisite for talks, Choe told his hosts.

That makes talks with Washington a non-starter since U.S. officials say North Korea must take meaningful steps on denuclearisation before there can be dialogue.

Choe told his Chinese hosts that Kim had consolidated his power since the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in December 2011, through the weapons tests and war threats that saw Pyongyang put its armed forces on alert this year.

There has been repeated speculation that the North's young leader had been challenged by some elements in the military, although these assessments have been impossible to verify given the closed nature of North Korea.

"Through mobilising troops, Kim Jong-un wanted to see who obeyed and who refused to obey his command," the source said.

Just under a year ago, Kim ousted Vice Marshal Ri Yong-ho, North Korea's leading military figure, as army chief of staff. A couple of days later North Korean media named Kim as marshal of the army.

"Many (officers) have been rounded up or sacked. Ri Yong-ho was arrested on counter-revolutionary crimes," the source said. He declined to say if Ri was jailed or executed.

"There had been some opposition to Kim Jong-un when he was named marshal. He has gotten rid of this."</s>A trim, neat man, Park is one of around two dozen North Korean operatives trapped in exile in affluent South Korea. He lives in a charity house in central Seoul with another former agent, 79-year-old Kim Young-sik, and dreams of the day he can return freely to the northern part of a unified Korea.

For Park and Kim, North Korea, which for several weeks has threatened the United States and South Korea with nuclear war, is no menace to world peace, rather a plucky nation that single-handedly stands up to American bullying.

"For an hour, I wish I could live with my loving family in the party's embrace in my peacefully unified nation and die," Park told Reuters, as Kim played "Arirang", a folk song regarded as the unofficial anthem of both Koreas, on a traditional harp.

In the garden of the quiet two-storey house, the two tend their walnut, cherry, apple and persimmon trees and a small vegetable plot.

After serving in the 1950-53 Korean War, Park worked as a projectionist at a movie theatre. In 1959, he was called up by the ruling Korean Workers' Party to ferry North Korean spies to the South and bring them back home across the border.

Sitting in his room neatly packed with books on North Korea, Park thumbs through a map of the peninsula, showing the route he used to cross the border.

He was captured in 1962 in a gun battle with South Korean coastguards in a bay as he and three comrades tried to make contact with an operative returning from the South. In the shoot-out that killed his boat's captain, Park was wounded in the thigh and arm, and crawled on to wetlands expecting to die. Hallucinating from his wounds and the cold, he says he dreamed of waving goodbye to his son, who was then just 16 months old.

Sentenced to life in prison, Park was released on parole in 1988 after signing a paper renouncing his beliefs. A thaw between the two Koreas - still technically at war after an armistice rather than a peace treaty ended the Korean War - saw 63 North Korean prisoners returned to Pyongyang in 2000, where they received a hero's welcome. Park applied to join a second large-scale repatriation, saying he had been tortured to sign the earlier renunciation of his beliefs.

His transfer home never happened, leaving him trapped in enemy territory. Both Park and Kim say, even now, they can't go home. "There's still security supervision. I'm told to report, even though I'll die tomorrow or the day after. When I was working, the police were making a fuss, thinking I ran away," recalled Kim.

Park, too, insisted the police would prevent them from returning home. "They're watching us even now. The cops would chase us," he said, adding that, even if they could flee, they didn't want to make life tougher for those left behind.

"People here have asked me ... what would happen to the rest if I left? I've never considered it (fleeing), as the watch would be stronger and life would be more difficult."

In an emailed reply to Reuters for this article, South Korea's Unification Ministry said repatriating "unconverted long-term prisoners should be considered cautiously, taking into account humanitarianism, the special nature of South-North Korean relations, issues with domestic law and popular consensus."

Despite most independent assessments that North Korea's economy has shrunk in the past 20 years, Park believes his homeland is the "strong and prosperous" nation portrayed in its official Juche ideology - a fusion of Marxism, extreme nationalism and self sufficiency centred on the Kim family cult as its defender.

"North Korea is doing well now ... No one here could imagine the arduous march," he said, using the North Korean term for a famine that devastated the country in the 1990s, killing an estimated 1 million people.

"With our belts tightened, we have been unyielding and resisted the United States' threats of pre-emptive nuclear strikes. That's unprecedented in the world," the softly-spoken Park said, suddenly raising his voice.

Park firmly believes the Workers' Party is taking care of his wife and son and, after all these years, he has not contemplated remarrying. "I have never thought about making families or getting married here. My wife and baby, these two only waiting for me to return, comes into my head. My conscience doesn't allow me," he said.

On his release from prison, Park eked out a living on construction sites and in furniture factories, always under the watchful eye of the local police. Five years ago, he settled in the house in Seoul run by a charity that helps North Korean ex-prisoners. Park and Kim are the only two left of a dozen or so who lived there. The death in February of a "comrade" leaves around two dozen veteran former spies and guerrilla fighters dotted around the South in various locations. Most were handed life jail terms, but have since been released.

Park's neatness and his meticulously tidy room contrast with the bearded and stocky Kim's room of clutter. "We can't eat together," says Kim. "Park is clean and impatient, but I'm laid back. Without a social conscience, I'd kick and get out of here."

Park fears that the heightened tensions between the two Koreas mean he will likely die in the South. "If I were lucky, I'd go and meet my family. But if luck's not with me, I'll die in a ditch. Here, it is death in a ditch," he said.

Every Thursday, both men join a small demonstration in the city centre against South Korea's National Security Law, which is used to imprison those spying for the North. Passers-by abuse them, calling them "stupid" and "commie", they said.

"We respect Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un. They are like our family," said Kim, referring to the three generations of the ruling dynasty in Pyongyang.</s>"If Pyongyang thought its recent threats would drive a wedge between South Korea and the United States or somehow garner the North international respect, today is further evidence that North Korea has failed again," Obama said at a joint news conference with South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

"President Park and myself very much share the view that we are going to maintain a strong deterrent, we're not going to reward provocative behaviour, but we remain open to the prospect of North Korea taking a peaceful path," he said.

Obama's meeting with Park, South Korea's first female president, comes after signs of what a Pentagon spokesman called "provocation pause" by Pyongyang after nearly months of threats to attack the United States and South Korea.

U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday that North Korea had taken two medium-range Musudan missiles off launch-ready status and moved them from the country's east coast.

The move, which followed a relative toning down of bellicose rhetoric from North Korean state media, could easily be reversed because the Musudan are mobile missiles, U.S. and South Korean officials cautioned.

Park, 61, said North Korea's isolation made it difficult to figure out whether and why Pyongyang had changed tack.

"Why is North Korea appearing to de-escalate its threats and provocations? There is no knowing for sure," she said through a translator.

U.S. Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, taking a cautious approach when asked about an apparent reduction in tensions, said the United States remained prepared for "any contingency."

"We would hope that the leadership in North Korea understands that the wiser course of action is to participate in a process toward peace," Hagel told a Pentagon news briefing.

Park, who took office in February just after North Korea conducted its third nuclear weapons test and began a 10-week campaign of near-daily treats to attack the South and U.S. territory with nuclear weapons.

Daniel Russel, the senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council, told reporters that Washington and Seoul were serious about deterring North Korea provocations and on holding Pyongyang to a denuclearization agreement.

"We both support incremental engagement and are prepared to support the North if they make the right decision and take steps to abide by their international obligations," he said on Monday.

North Korea agreed under a 2005 pact signed with the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia to abandon all of its nuclear weapons programs in exchange for economic aid, energy supplies and an end to diplomatic isolation.

That deal unravelled after Pyongyang staged a series of nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and last February.

Obama and Park said the door remained open to returning to diplomacy, but the onus was on North Korea.

"So far, at least, we haven't seen actions on the part of the North Koreans that would indicate they're prepared to move in a different direction," Obama said.

While North Korea loomed over Park's meeting with Obama, her visit also highlighted the 60th anniversary of a security alliance formed during the 1950-53 Korean War and South Korea's rise from poverty to become a wealthy democracy.

"Korea is very proud that it's the only example so far of a nation that used to receive U.S. Peace Corps volunteers and now sends Korean volunteers out to help other developing countries," said a senior U.S. State Department official.

Obama drew laughter from Park and her entourage with a nod to South Korea's growing soft power and cultural export prowess, marketed as the "Korean Wave" and embodied by rapper PSY and his quirky 2012 video and dance hit "Gangnam Style."

"Around the world, people are being swept up by Korean culture, 'the Korean Wave,'" he said. "And, as I've mentioned to President Park, my daughters have taught me a pretty good 'Gangnam style.'"

Obama also noted that a bilateral free trade agreement between the counties signed by his predecessor George W. Bush but implemented a year ago, had started to boost trade.

"On our side, we're selling more exports to Korea, more manufactured goods, more services, more agricultural products," said Obama. He added: "Even as we have a long way to go, our automobile exports are up nearly 50 percent."

Critics, notably in the U.S. auto and steel sectors, however, say the trade deal has not removed South Korean barriers to manufactured goods and the increase in car sales is from a low base.

Alan Tonelson of the U.S. Business and Industry Council, a critic of such trade pacts, says a U.S. merchandise trade deficit with South Korea that rose 135.75 percent in the year to March 2013 shows that the bilateral FTA "has slowed the already feeble U.S. recovery and undoubtedly reduced hiring."

Park on Monday visited the Korean War Memorial in Washington honouring the 36,000 Americans killed in that conflict. On Wednesday, she will give a speech at a joint session of Congress and then have lunch with American executives from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.</s>(SEOUL) — U.S. missile launchers and other equipment needed to set up a controversial missile defense system have arrived in South Korea, the U.S. and South Korean militaries said Tuesday, a day after North Korea test-launched four ballistic missiles into the ocean near Japan.

The plans to deploy the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, by the end of this year have angered not only North Korea, but also China and Russia, which see the system's powerful radars as a security threat.

Washington and Seoul say the system is defensive and not meant to be a threat to Beijing or Moscow.

The U.S. military said in a statement that THAAD is meant to intercept and destroy short and medium range ballistic missiles during the last part of their flights.

"Continued provocative actions by North Korea, to include yesterday's launch of multiple missiles, only confirm the prudence of our alliance decision last year to deploy THAAD to South Korea," Adm. Harry Harris, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, said in the statement.

Some South Korean liberal presidential candidates have said that the security benefits of having THAAD would be curtailed by worsened relations with neighbors China and Russia.

China's condemnation of South Korean plans to deploy THAAD has triggered protests against South Korean retail giant, Lotte, which agreed to provide one of its golf courses in southern South Korea as the site of THAAD. The South Korean government also raised worries about a reported ban on Chinese tour groups visiting the country.

An official from South Korea's Defense Ministry, who didn't want to be named, citing office rules, said that the equipment that arrived in South Korea included launchers, but didn't confirm how many.

On Monday, North Korea fired four ballistic missiles in an apparent protest against ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills that it views as an invasion rehearsal. The missiles flew about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) on average, three of them landing in waters that Japan claims as its exclusive economic zone, according to South Korean and Japanese officials.

The North's state media on Tuesday said leader Kim Jong Un supervised a ballistic rocket launching drill, a likely reference to the four launches reported by Seoul and Tokyo. Involved in the drills were artillery units tasked with striking "U.S. imperialist aggressor forces in Japan," according to the Korean Central News Agency.

Kim "ordered the KPA (Korean People's Army) Strategic Force to keep highly alert as required by the grim situation in which an actual war may break out anytime," a KCNA dispatch said.</s>SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Monday fired four banned ballistic missiles that flew about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) on average, with three of them landing in waters that Japan claims as its exclusive economic zone, South Korean and Japanese officials said. The test-launches appeared to be in reaction to huge U.S.-South Korean military drills that Pyongyang insists are an invasion rehearsal.

It was not immediately clear the exact type of missile fired, but the tests will be viewed as a provocation by the Trump administration, which is working on its policy for North Korea. The New York Times reported over the weekend that the United States still can’t effectively counter Pyongyang’s actions despite efforts to perfect cyber and electronic strikes against North Korea’s missile program.

Pyongyang has test-launched a series of missiles of various ranges in recent months, including a new intermediate-range missile in February; it also conducted two nuclear tests last year. The ramped-up tests come as leader Kim Jong Un pushes for a nuclear and missile program that can deter what he calls U.S. and South Korean hostility toward the North.

There have been widespread worries that the North will conduct an ICBM test that, when perfected, could in theory reach the U.S. mainland. Washington would consider such a capability a major threat.

U.S. national security adviser H.R. McMaster and his South Korean counterpart Kim Kwan-jin talked by phone after the missile firings. The two condemned the launches and agreed to boost cooperation to get the North to face more effective sanctions and pressure, according to South Korea’s presidential office.

Japanese officials said three missiles landed in the 200-nautical-mile offshore area where Tokyo has sovereign rights for exploring and exploiting resources. It’s the third time that North Korean missiles have fallen in Japan’s exclusive economic zone, beginning last August. Japanese leaders see the launches into nearby waters as a growing threat.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that Monday’s launches were made from the Tongchang-ri area in North Phyongan province. The area is the home of the North’s Sohae rocket launch site where it has conducted prohibited long-range rocket launches in recent years.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, “We remain prepared — and will continue to take steps to increase our readiness — to defend ourselves and our allies from attack, and are prepared to use the full range of capabilities at our disposal against this growing threat.”

Seoul and Washington call their military drills on the Korean Peninsula, which remains in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice and not a peace treaty, defensive and routine.

The North hates the military drills, which run until late April and which analysts say force its impoverished military to respond with expensive deployments and drills of their own. An unidentified spokesman for the North’s General Staff of the Korean People’s Army said last week that Pyongyang’s reaction to the southern drills would be the toughest ever but didn’t elaborate

The United States has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, and 50,000 in Japan, as a deterrent against a potential aggression from the North.</s>North Korea has fired a projectile into the Sea of Japan, which is also known as the East Sea, according to a South Korean Defense Ministry official.

The object was fired from the Tongchang-ri, in the country’s North Pyongan province, early Monday local time, the official said.

South Korea and the United States are currently holding their annual military exercises, known as Foal Eagle.

North Korea has already denounced this year’s exercises through state media service KCNA.

“Now that the US imperialists and the South Korean puppet forces again kicked off the dangerous nuclear war drills against the DPRK at its doorstep, our army will counter them with the toughest counteractions,” it said.

The exercises usually draw condemnation and retribution from Pyongyang.

During last year’s drills, North Korea fired multiple short to medium range missiles and announced it could place nuclear warheads on its weapons.

The firing also comes a day after Seoul quadrupled the award for North Korean defectors and nearly a month after North Korea test-fired a new type of missile, the Pukguksong-2, a medium-long range ballistic missile.

That missile was also fired from North Pyongan province and traveled 500 kilometers (310 miles) before landing in the Sea of Japan.

The launch happened while Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in the United States visiting US President Donald Trump.</s>Park Geun-hye, one of Asia's few women leaders, took office in Seoul in February amid war threats by North Korea, while China's Xi Jinping was appointed in November and has sought to rein in the North's nuclear weapons program, backing tougher economic sanctions against Beijing's traditional ally.

"The two leaders shared a common view on denuclearizing North Korea, maintaining peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and resolving issues through dialogue and negotiations," Park's office said in a statement after they met.

China backed North Korea in the 1950-53 Korean War with late leader Mao Zedong's eldest son dying in the conflict with the South. The 60th anniversary of the end of the war is July 27.

Beijing is the main economic and diplomatic lifeline for the impoverished and isolated state, whose three nuclear weapons tests since 2006 have threatened Asia's security.

China has boosted sanctions on its ally, which this year conducted a nuclear test in defiance of international criticism. It has also closed access for North Korean banks in China.

Xi was appointed Communist Party chairman, China's most powerful position, last November and named president in March.

In April, he told an international forum in southern China that no country "should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain".

While Xi did not name North Korea, his comment came amid the highest tension on the peninsula in years, with daily threats from Pyongyang to attack South Korea and the United States.

Xinhua, China's state news agency, appeared to criticize Pyongyang ahead of the visit, saying that "hard-earned trust among concerned parties has been evaporating following unfortunate incidents one after another" since 2009.

In 2009, the North walked out of denuclearization talks brokered by China, carried out its second nuclear test and in 2010 was accused of sinking a South Korean naval vessel and shelling a South Korean island.

China, Asia's largest economy, consumes 15 percent of South Korean exports in annual trade worth $215 billion. North Korea's puny economy trades just $6 billion with China.

Park, 61, was accompanied by a hefty economic delegation from South Korea's huge industrial conglomerates, including the world's largest electronics company, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, and Hyundai Motor Co. .

The two countries' central banks extended a currency swap for 64 trillion Korean won ($55.44 billion) or 360 billion yuan, as part of a defense against financial market instability.

Unlike a military delegation sent by North Korea last month that featured aged generals bedecked with medals, Park appeared to get an enthusiastic welcome from her hosts.

"Park Geun-hye visits China" was the most searched financial and economic topic on Weibo, China's version of Twitter.

In response to an interview with Park by state broadcaster CCTV, one microblogger, Christumn, said: "I am already her fan".

By contrast, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is derided on some Chinese social media sites as "Fatty Kim".

Stylish and mild mannered, Park arrived with self-taught Mandarin skills, and received a warm welcome from state media for a trip she described as "a journey to deepen the mind and trust" between the two countries.

"The visit, which comes months after both countries saw leadership change, is expected to open a new chapter in bilateral relations," Xinhua said.

Park is to deliver an address at Tsinghua University, Xi's alma mater, on Saturday and visit the ancient capital of Xi'an, the site of major South Korean investment, including a $7 billion chip complex by Samsung Electronics.

Park, whose mother was killed by a North Korean-backed assassin, got a guarded welcome from ethnic Koreans in China.

"I feel thankful for South Korea. Its economy has grown to become one of Asia's four dragons and expanded in China... But on the other hand we want North Korea to live well," said Li Jung-ae, 49, who has a PhD in finance from Tsinghua University. ($ = 1154.5000 Korean won)</s>"If there is any provocation against South Korea and its people, there should be a strong response in initial combat without any political considerations," South Korean President Park Geun-hye told the defence minister and senior officials at a meeting on Monday.

The United States, in the latest step taken in response to rising tensions, positioned in the waters off the Korean peninsula a Navy guided-missile destroyer used for ballistic missile defence.

In another development, North Korea appointed a reformer and career technocrat to the reclusive and impoverished communist country's ceremonial prime minister's job.

The appointment of former premier Pak Pong-ju, a key confidant of the leadership dynasty, to the post from which he was fired in 2007 appeared to further tighten the ruling family's grip on power. Pak previously was ousted from the job for failing to implement economic reforms.

North Korea says the region is on the brink of a nuclear war in the wake of U.N. sanctions imposed in response to its February nuclear test and a series of joint U.S. and South Korean military drills that have included a rare U.S. show of aerial power.

In Washington, the White House has said the United States takes seriously North Korea's war threats. But White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Monday: "I would note that despite the harsh rhetoric we are hearing from Pyongyang, we are not seeing changes to the North Korean military posture, such as large-scale mobilizations and positioning of forces."

North Korea further escalated its rhetoric on Saturday by saying it was entering a "state of war" with South Korea in response to what it termed the "hostile" military drills being staged in the South.

South Korea has changed its rules of engagement to allow local units to respond immediately to attacks, rather than waiting for permission from Seoul.

Stung by criticism that its response to the shelling of a South Korean island in 2010 was tardy and weak, Seoul has also threatened to target young North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and to destroy statues of the ruling Kim dynasty in the event of any new attack, a plan that has outraged Pyongyang.

South Korea and its ally the United States played down Saturday's statement from the official KCNA news agency as the latest in a stream of tough talk from Pyongyang.

"We haven't seen actions to back up the rhetoric," Carney told reporters.

A South Korean defence ministry official also said last week there have been no signs of unusual activity in North Korea's military to suggest imminent aggression.

North Korea stepped up its rhetoric in early March, when U.S. and South Korean forces began annual military drills that involved the flights of U.S. B-2 stealth bombers in a practice run, prompting the North to puts its missile units on standby to fire at U.S. military bases in South Korea and in the Pacific.

The United States also deployed F-22 stealth fighter jets on Sunday to take part in the drills. The F-22s were deployed in South Korea before, in 2010.

The Pentagon said it was the fourth time F-22s were deployed to South Korea. They were on display at the Osan Air Base, in part to provide senior South Korean military leaders an "orientation to the aircraft," the Pentagon said.

A U.S. defence official said the USS McCain, an Aegis-class guided-missile destroyer used for ballistic missile defense, was being positioned to operate off the south-western coast of the Korean peninsula.

"This is a prudent move that provides greater missile defense options should (they) become necessary," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The ship was not expected to participate in any exercises, the official added.

North Korea has cancelled an armistice agreement with the United States that ended the Korean War and has cut all hotlines with U.S. forces, the United Nations and South Korea.

Park's remarks followed a meeting of North Korea's ruling Workers Party Central Committee where leader Kim Jong-un rejected the notion that Pyongyang was going to use its nuclear arms development as a bargaining chip.

"The nuclear weapons of Songun Korea are not goods for getting U.S. dollars and they are ... (not) to be put on the table of negotiations aimed at forcing the (North) to disarm itself," KCNA news agency quoted him as saying.

Songun is the Korean word for the "Military First" policy preached by Kim's father who used it to justify the use of the impoverished state's scarce resources to build a 1.2-million strong army and a weapons of mass destruction programme.

At the meeting, Kim appointed a handful of personal confidants to the party's politburo, further consolidating his grip on power in the second full year of his reign.

The most surprising move was the re-appointment of Pak as premier. Pak, believed to be in his 70s, is viewed as a key ally of Jang Song-thaek, the young Kim's uncle and also a protégé of Kim's aunt and is viewed as a pawn in a power game that has seen Jang and his wife re-assert power over military leaders.

Pak is a career technocrat who took the post of premier in 2003 to implement an ambitious economic reform policy that allowed autonomy in farm production and pricing liberalisation, introduced in July 2002.

He was removed in 2007 when it became clear the steps aimed at boosting the North Korean economy, gripped by devastating famine in the 1990s, were not producing desired results and the North's military began protests at the cabinet, wielding greater power on state matters.

Jang, Kim's uncle, was also purged and has since been rehabilitated.

Analysts said the move would not likely change North Korea's approach to a confrontation that appears to have dragged the two Koreas closer to war.</s>U.S. missile launchers and other equipment needed to set up a controversial missile defense system have arrived in South Korea, the U.S. and South Korean militaries said Tuesday, a day after North Korea test-launched four ballistic missiles into the ocean near Japan.

The plans to deploy the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, within this year have angered not only North Korea, but also China and Russia, which see the system's powerful radars as a security threat.

China responded quickly, saying it will take "necessary measures" to protect itself and warning that the U.S. and South Korea should be prepared to bear the consequences.

Washington and Seoul say the system is defensive and not meant to be a threat to Beijing or Moscow. The U.S. military said in a statement that THAAD can intercept and destroy short and medium range ballistic missiles during the last part of their flights.

"Continued provocative actions by North Korea, to include yesterday's launch of multiple missiles, only confirm the prudence of our alliance decision last year to deploy THAAD to South Korea," Adm. Harry Harris, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, said in the statement.

Some South Korean liberal presidential candidates have said that the security benefits of having THAAD would be curtailed by worsened relations with neighbors China and Russia.

"China firmly opposes the deployment of THAAD," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a regular briefing Tuesday. "We will definitely be taking necessary measures to safeguard our own security interest. All consequences entailed from that will be borne by the U.S. and (South Korea). We once again strongly urge the relevant sides to stop the process of deployment and refrain from going further down that wrong path."

China's condemnation of South Korea's plans to deploy THAAD has triggered protests against a South Korean retail giant, Lotte, which agreed to provide one of its golf courses in southern South Korea as the site of THAAD. The South Korean government also raised concerns about a reported ban on Chinese tour groups visiting the country.

On Tuesday, China's Global Times, an outspoken nationalist tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party's flagship People's Daily, criticized North Korea over the missiles.

"By firing four missiles at once this time, the military confrontation between Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington escalates a notch," the paper said. "Noticeably, the Chinese public is angry that Pyongyang's nuclear program has provided an excuse for Seoul to deploy THAAD."

An official from South Korea's Defense Ministry, who didn't want to be named, citing office rules, said that the equipment that arrived in South Korea included launchers, but didn't confirm how many.

While South Korea's media speculate that the THAAD deployment could be completed by as early as April, the ministry official couldn't confirm those reports. The official said that the plan was to have the system operational as soon as possible.

On Monday, North Korea fired four ballistic missiles in an apparent protest against ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills that it views as an invasion rehearsal. The missiles flew about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) on average, three of them landing in waters that Japan claims as its exclusive economic zone, according to South Korean and Japanese officials.

The North's state media on Tuesday said leader Kim Jong Un supervised a ballistic rocket launching drill, a likely reference to the four launches reported by Seoul and Tokyo. Involved in the drills were artillery units tasked with striking "U.S. imperialist aggressor forces in Japan," according to the Korean Central News Agency.

There was pride and defiance among the elite citizens who live in North Korea's showcase capital, Pyongyang.

"If the U.S. imperialists and their South Korean puppets shoot even just one spark into our sovereign territory, we will completely destroy those aggressors, without any mercy, with our invincible Hwasong artillery, which are loaded with nuclear warheads," Sim Chol Su, echoing the propaganda often found in state media, told The Associated Press.

North Korea uses "Hwasong" to describe a broad range of its ballistic missiles, including Scuds and the mid-range missiles that are referred to as Rodong and Musudan by outside analysts.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the missiles fired by the North were believed to be "improved versions" of Scud missiles. South Korean experts say North Korea's extended-range Scuds and mid-range Rodong missiles are capable of hitting Japan, including U.S. military bases in Okinawa.

Kim "ordered the KPA (Korean People's Army) Strategic Force to keep highly alert as required by the grim situation in which an actual war may break out anytime," a KCNA dispatch said.</s>North Korea said in its first statement since launching missiles on Monday the tests were part of training for potential strikes against U.S. bases in Japan.Pyongyang’s state-controlled news agency KCNA said Tuesday “Comrade Kim Jong Un had provided field guidance to the Hwasong artillery unit of the Korean People’s Army.”KCNA also stated the Hwasong unit were part of the training because it is “tasked with striking the U.S. imperial troops based in Japan, in the case of an emergency.”The missiles were fired the minute Kim Jong Un “issued his order, at which moment ballistic rockets burst simultaneously into a thunderous explosion as they flew toward the brightening eastern sky, proudly leaving behind vapor trails that symbolized the destruction of the enemy.”The North Korean leader reportedly expressed his satisfaction with the test, comparing the “simultaneous launches to a flying squadron.”Kim said the ballistic missile launches send a warning to the enemy and added North Korea’s military “fully demonstrated its power, and the ability to destroy the enemy in the most accurate, swift and thorough manner.”According to South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff on Monday, four missiles were fired in succession in 10 minutes, and each missile was launched at different angles.On Monday the Pentagon said a fifth missile was launched but failed.North Korea only confirmed the suspicion of South Korea military chiefs about the goals of its missile testing.According to South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff, three of the four missiles landed in Japanese territorial waters, making it likely North Korea is rehearsing attacks against U.S. military stations in Japan, from where reinforcements for the Korean peninsula would arrive in the event of war.Seoul said all four projectiles were most likely midrange ballistic missiles that are not capable of reaching the continental United States, South Korean newspaper Kukmin Ilbo reported Monday.The rockets, which all flew distances of 620 miles or less, could have been projectiles like the Rodong, the Scud-ER, or a modified missile like the Pukguksong-2, launched Feb. 12.But the South Korea military is not ruling out the possibility that at least one of the missiles was an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, because of the location of the launch.The station in Tongchang-ri, North Pyongan Province, has been the site of previously long-range rocket tests.In another development, North Korea said on Tuesday it has temporarily banned Malaysians from leaving the country to ensure the safety of its diplomats and citizens in Malaysia.The ban came amid an escalating row over the killing of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half-brother, Kim Jong Nam.The North’s foreign ministry has notified the Malaysian embassy in Pyongyang of the reason for the measure and said it had hoped the case would be swiftly and fairly resolved in order to develop bilateral ties with Malaysia, the North’s KCNA news agency reported.
South Korea claims that North Korea has fired several missiles from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station into the Sea of Japan.