Russia’s “reckless” overnight attack on a nuclear power plant in Ukraine is a dangerous escalation that “represents a dire threat to all of Europe and the world,” the US ambassador to the United Nations said on Friday.

“By the grace of God, the world narrowly averted a nuclear catastrophe last night,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council.

“Russia’s attack last night put Europe’s largest nuclear power plant at grave risk,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

“It was incredibly reckless and dangerous. And it threatened the safety of civilians across Russia, Ukraine and Europe,” she said.

“Nuclear facilities cannot become part of this conflict,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

She urged Russian leader Vladimir Putin to end the invasion of Ukraine.

“Not only has he not listened, we’ve just witnessed a dangerous new escalation that represents a dire threat to all of Europe and the world,” Thomas-Greenfield said. 

“President Putin must stop this humanitarian catastrophe by ending this war and ceasing these unconscionable attacks against the people of Ukraine,” she said. “Mr. Putin must stop this madness, and stop it now.”

Moscow’s ambassador to the United Nations denied accusations that Russian forces had shelled Europe’s largest atomic power plant in Zaporizhzhia.

“These statements are simply untrue,” Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council. “This is all part of an unprecedented campaign of lies and disinformation against Russia.”

He said Russian troops had exchanged small arms fire with Ukrainian forces at Zaporizhzhia but had not shelled the facility in southern Ukraine.

He said the fighting occurred at a training complex “located just outside the territory of the nuclear power plant” and accused “Ukrainian saboteurs” of setting fire to the training facility.

“The operation of the nuclear power plant continues normally,” Nebenzia said. “Nothing threatens the safety of the six power units.

“There is no threat of a release of radioactive material.”

Source: AFP

Iran’s supreme leader on Tuesday said US policies are to blame for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, calling for an end to the war that broke out last week.

“The root cause of the Ukraine crisis is the US and the West’s policies,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a televised speech marking a Muslim religious anniversary.

“The United States regime is a crisis-creating and crisis-living one. It feeds on crisis.

“In my opinion, today Ukraine is also the victim of such policy. Today, the Ukraine situation is related to this US policy. The US has dragged Ukraine to this point,” he added.

He accused Washington of meddling in the “internal affairs of the country, setting up demonstrations against the governments, creating velvet revolutions, creating colour coup d’etats”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine last Thursday.

Ukraine says more than 350 civilians have been killed since, and that Moscow is amassing more troops for a possible assault on the capital city Kyiv.

Iran’s supreme leader said Tehran wants the “war to end”, and called for civilians’ lives and infrastructure to be spared during the conflict.

“We are against war and destruction, anywhere in the world,” Khamenei said, adding that “we are against killing people, the destruction of people’s infrastructure”.

The invasion has pushed tensions between Russia and the West to their highest point in decades.

The US, European allies and NATO members have imposed severe sanctions on Moscow and are supplying Ukraine with weapons and defence equipment.

Khamenei said that lessons should be drawn from the war, mainly that “Western powers’ support of puppet regimes and governments is a mirage, it is not real”.

Relations between the US and Iran have been severed since April 1980, a year after the fall of the pro-Western shah.

This was followed by the occupation of the American embassy in Tehran, and the seizing of hostages in a crisis that lasted for more than a year.

The two arch-rivals are currently engaged in indirect negotiations in Vienna to restore a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, from which Washington unilaterally withdrew in 2018.

Iran’s leader, who has the final say in major state policies, called the US a “mafia regime”.

“Political mafia, economic mafia, arms-producing mafia; different types of mafias that control and lead the policies of the country and actually control the country,” he said.

Source: AFP

US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed in principle to a summit over Ukraine, the French leader said on Monday, offering a possible path out of one of the most dangerous European crises in decades.

The office of French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement he had pitched to both leaders a summit on “security and strategic stability in Europe”. The White House said in a statement that Biden had accepted the meeting “in principle” but only “if an invasion hasn’t happened”.

“We are always ready for diplomacy,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said. “We are also ready to impose swift and severe consequences should Russia instead choose war.”

Messages seeking comment from the Kremlin and from the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky were not immediately returned early on Monday.

Many details about the proposed summit – which was announced after a volley of phone calls between Macron, Biden, Putin, Zelensky and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson – are not clear.

Macron’s office and the White House said the substance of the summit would be worked out by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during their meeting planned for February 24. What role Ukraine would play in the summit, if any, was also uncertain.

A Biden administration official said in an email that the summit was “completely notional” as the timing and format had yet to be determined.

Source: AFP

President Joe Biden on Thursday said he plans by the end of February to nominate a Black woman to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a historic first that he called “long overdue.”

Biden appeared with Breyer, whom he has known since the 1970s, at the White House after the 83-year-old justice formally announced his retirement in a letter to the president. Breyer wrote that he plans to depart at the conclusion of the court’s current term, typically at the end of June, assuming his successor has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Biden, who won the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination in large part because of strong support from Black voters, noted that he committed during that campaign to name a Black woman to a lifetime post on the high court and would keep his promise.

“Our process is going to be rigorous. I will select a nominee worthy of Justice Breyer’s legacy of excellence and decency,” Biden said, calling the selection of a Supreme Court justice one of a president’s most serious constitutional responsibilities.

“While I’ve been studying candidates’ backgrounds and writings, I’ve made no decision except one: the person I nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity – and that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court. It’s long overdue, in my view,” Biden said.

Potential nominees include Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former Breyer law clerk confirmed by the Senate last June to serve on an influential U.S. appellate court, and Leondra Kruger, who serves on the California Supreme Court. Another potential contender is Michelle Childs, a federal district court judge in South Carolina who Biden already has nominated to the U.S.  appeals court in Washington.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Biden believes that being a sitting judge is not prerequisite for his nominee and that whether a candidate could draw support from Republicans is not an influencing factor.

Biden said he wants the Senate, which his fellow Democrats control by a razor-thin margin, to “move promptly” once he chooses his nominee. Democrats can confirm a nominee without a single Republican vote because Republicans in 2017 changed the Senate rules to no longer require 60 of the 100 senators to allow Supreme Court nominations to move forward.

While Breyer’s retirement after 27 years gives Biden his first chance to fill a vacancy on the nine-member court, it will not change its ideological balance. The court’s 6-3 conservative majority has shown a growing willingness to reshape the law on contentious issues including abortion and gun rights. Biden’s Republican predecessor Donald Trump appointed three justices during his single four-year term in office.

Breyer, the court’s oldest justice, often found himself in dissent on a court that has moved ever rightward. He spoke at the White House of the importance of a diverse nation like the United States resolving its deep divisions by adhering to the rule of law.

“People have come to accept this Constitution and they have come to accept the importance of the rule of law,” Breyer said, holding a copy of the 18th century foundational document in his hand.

White House reaching out to candidates

White House officials expect to begin reaching out to and potentially meeting with candidates as soon as next week, according to a source familiar with the situation. Biden is expected to work with a list of 10 or fewer people.

Senate Democrats aim to quickly confirm Biden’s nominee in a time frame similar to the one-month process that the chamber’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, used in 2020 to approve Trump’s third appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, according to a source familiar with planning.

Republicans are seeking to regain control of the Senate in the Nov. 8 congressional elections, underscoring the need for speed from the perspective of Democrats. McConnell has indicated he would block any Biden nominations to the court if his party regains the Senate majority.

McConnell said in a statement: “The president must not outsource this important decision to the radical left. The American people deserve a nominee with demonstrated reverence for the written text of our laws and our Constitution.”

Trump’s three conservative appointees who McConnell pushed through the Senate came from a shortlist prepared with the input of outside conservative legal activists associated with the Federalist Society.

Biden said he was expressing the nation’s gratitude to Breyer for his “remarkable career in public service” and noted past rulings the justice authored upholding abortion rights, voting rights, environmental measures and religious liberty.

“This is a bittersweet day for me,” Biden said. “I think he’s a model public servant in a time of great division in this country.”

Source: REUTERS

Russia risks becoming embroiled in a “terrible quagmire” if it invades Ukraine, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is to warn Friday in a speech in Sydney.

The UK’s top diplomat will tell Russian President Vladimir Putin that he is on the brink of making a strategic blunder by launching military action and “has not learned the lessons of history.”

According to prepared remarks to the Lowy Institute, Truss will urge Putin to “desist and step back from Ukraine before he makes a massive strategic mistake.”

“Invasion will only lead to a terrible quagmire and loss of life, as we know from the Soviet-Afghan war and conflict in Chechnya.”

Tens of thousands of Russian troops have massed on Ukraine’s border, and the drumbeat of invasion has been growing for months.

Few military experts believe that Kyiv’s smaller forces could repel an outright invasion.

But Truss will become the latest official to raise the spectre of a protracted and bloody Ukrainian resistance that ensnares occupying Russian forces.

The top diplomat is currently on an official visit to Australia alongside British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace.

Speaking in Sydney at the conclusion of the talks, Wallace and his Australian counterpart Peter Dutton drew a parallel between rising tensions today and the pre-war 1930s.

Wallace noted the two countries had “fought side-by-side then against authoritarian and totalitarian regimes” during World War II.

“Eighty-one years ago to the day, men of the Australian 6th division and the British 7th division captured Tobruk from the Nazis,” he said.

“We won not just because of the bravery of those men who died, many of them, for the sake of freedom, but because we have an alliance.”

Australian Defence Minister Dutton said: “We would be in a very different situation if, during the 1930s and 1940s, the United Kingdom hadn’t stood up to malign forces.”

‘Step up’

The trip comes as Western officials engage in frantic shuttle diplomacy, in part to prevent war, but also to overcome differences in how to respond to any Russian aggression.

Truss will urge allies to “step up” in the face of the crisis, linking the Ukraine conflict to a slew of increasingly emboldened authoritarian regimes who are looking to “export dictatorship.”

“Together with our allies, we will continue to stand with Ukraine and urge Russia to de-escalate and engage in meaningful discussions. What happens in Eastern Europe matters for the world,” she will say.

Truss’ call won support in Australia — which has come under fierce diplomatic, economic and political pressure from China, another authoritarian power, in recent years.

A slew of Australian goods are currently banned from China or under punitive tariffs, following a row over Beijing’s influence in Australia and the region.

Dutton echoed Truss’ call for “the free world to stand its ground.”

“When you see Russia act the way they do, it encourages other bullies and other dictatorships to do the same, and particularly if there’s no pushback from the rest of the world,” Dutton told the Seven Network.

“Thousands of people will die and that is not a circumstance that anyone wants to see prevail. The build-up of the Russian troops is incredibly concerning.”

Source: AFP

U.S. President Joe Biden predicted on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin will make a move into Ukraine and said Russia would pay dearly for a full-scale invasion, with its businesses possibly losing access to the U.S. dollar.

“My guess is he will move in,” Biden told a news conference. “He has to do something.”

The Kremlin has massed some 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders, a buildup that the West says is preparation for a war to prevent Ukraine from ever joining the NATO Western security alliance. Russia denies planning an invasion.

Biden told reporters he believed Putin would test Western leaders and he said that the response to any Russian invasion would depend on the scale of Moscow’s actions and whether U.S. allies squabbled over how to react.

“Russia will be held accountable if it invades – and it depends on what it does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about what to do and what to not do, et cetera,” Biden said.

“But if they actually do what they’re capable of doing … it is going to be a disaster for Russia if they further invade Ukraine,” Biden added.

Biden and his team have prepared a broad set of sanctions and other economic penalties to impose on Russia in the event of an invasion.

Biden, pressed on what he meant by “minor incursion,” said NATO allies are not united on how to respond depending on what exactly Putin does, saying “there are differences” among them and that he was trying to make sure that “everybody’s on the same page.”

“Big nations can’t bluff, number one. Number two, the idea that we would do anything to split NATO … would be a big mistake. So the question is, if it’s something significantly short of a significant invasion or … just major military forces coming across. For example, it’s one thing to determine if they continue to use cyber efforts; well, we can respond the same way,” he said.

U.S. officials reject limiting NATO expansion as a non-starter, but Biden suggested there could be a deal under which the West might not station nuclear forces in Ukraine.

Visiting Kyiv in a show of support, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Russia could launch a new attack on Ukraine at “very short notice” but Washington would pursue diplomacy as long as it could, even though it was unsure what Moscow really wanted.

Source: REUTERS

Joe Biden 1.0 was a calming, grandfatherly figure, a low-key veteran coming out of retirement in 2020 to heal a nation deeply divided by Donald Trump. A year later, meet Biden 2.0 — the frustrated, angry fighter.

“I’m tired of being quiet,” he said last week in a blistering speech.

Biden was referring specifically to his many fruitless “quiet conversations” behind the scenes with senators in a doomed effort to get his signature legislation on voting rights passed. He could just as well have been summing up the exasperation of his first 12 months in the Oval Office.

And if 2021 saw mild Biden, 2022 looks set to feature a louder, more pugnacious version — a president running out of time, patience and allies to save what remain of his ambitions.

Biden took office January 20, 2021 — at 78, the oldest man to ever become US president — facing incredible challenges.

Covid-19 was out of control, Trump’s supporters had just two weeks earlier tried overturning the presidential election, the economy was comatose, and around the world US allies were reeling in Trump shock of their own.

Biden’s answer to all that — not to mention to the explosive tensions over racism after a series of Black Americans were killed during botched arrests — was to promise competency, old-fashioned decency and unity.

“My whole soul is in this. Bringing America together, uniting our people,” Biden pledged in his inaugural address.

And he even seemed to have a chance of pulling it off.

Democrats narrowly controlled both houses of Congress, Trump had been banished from Twitter, and Covid vaccines were ready.

“There were high expectations that Biden, given his experience and his knowledge of Washington, would be able… to make the trains run on time again,” said Lara Brown, director of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University.

“It was all about a return to normalcy.”

Fast forward to the start of Biden’s second year.

Beset by the Delta and Omicron Covid variants, an ever-more divided America, and the likely loss of Congress to the Republicans in November’s midterm elections, Biden’s luck at the age of 79 seems to have run short.

With a majority of just one in the Senate and barely more than that in the House, his huge social spending plan — called Build Back Better — is dead in the water. Ditto the voting rights package he says is needed to save US democracy from Trump’s supporters.

A centrist at heart, Biden has failed to connect with the right or satisfy his own party’s left. As he’s discovering, the center today is hard to find.

Average approval polls on fivethirtyeight.com are at a lowly 42 percent, down from 53. A recent Quinnipiac poll, while an outlier, posted a disturbing 33 percent approval.

Abroad, the picture is similar.

While world allies do like having a United States not governed by Trump back, the country’s humiliating military exit from Afghanistan torpedoed the Biden administration’s aura of professionalism. Certainly Russia seems unconcerned, as it masses troops on Ukraine’s border.

It all adds up to a bitter awakening from the days when the White House buzzed with idealism and talk of Biden emulating his hero Franklin Roosevelt, who led America through the Great Depression in the 1930s.

“Their optimism, combined with the public expectation that all of this would be solved, led them down a path of hubris,” Brown said.

‘Less shouting’ or ‘fight’?

There’s still a scenario where Biden comes out on top: the pandemic burns out, the economy stabilizes, inflation recedes, and with the subsequent feel-good factor Biden gets his party to reverse those legislative defeats just in time for the midterms.

Biden’s aides also point out they got Congress to pass the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, juicing a Covid-ravaged economy and preventing more widespread misery. Remarkably, Democrats also got strong Republican support in passing a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package.

All that with a razor-thin majority in Congress.

The more likely outcome for 2022, though, is continued Democratic infighting, followed by Republicans winning one or both chambers of Congress in November.

At that point, Biden can expect aggressive House investigations, and even possibly impeachment, as Republicans seek to further undermine their opponents’ ability to govern.

And it would become increasingly likely a 2024 White House challenge could come from Trump, even as the former president continues to try to subvert the 2020 election.

So much for Biden’s vow to restore “the soul of America.”

David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist at the heart of the mainstream establishment, advises Biden to pivot back to “less shouting and more of Biden’s trademark common sense.”

But Biden, his back against the wall, is signaling that he sees things more darkly going into 2022.

“I did not seek this fight,” he said in another dramatic speech this month, this time commemorating the anniversary of the January 6 storming of Congress by Trump supporters.

“But I will not shrink from it either,” Biden said. “I will stand in this breach.”

Source: AFP

Russia ruled out Sunday any concession at talks with the United States on soaring tensions over Ukraine as Moscow seeks a wide-ranging new security arrangement with the West but faces strong pressure to pull back troops.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian news agencies ahead of his talks in Geneva the Kremlin was also “disappointed” with signals coming from both Washington and Brussels, where NATO and the European Union are based.

The high-level discussions start a week of diplomacy in which Russia will meet with NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), with the US trying to assure European allies they will not be sidelined.

Russia since late last year has amassed tens of thousands of troops at the Ukrainian border and demanded guarantees that NATO will not expand further eastward.

The Kremlin is insisting NATO must never grant membership to ex-Soviet Ukraine, which is pushing to join.

The United States, to be represented by Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, agreed to talks even though it made plain that many of Moscow’s proposals are non-starters.

Originally scheduled to start on Monday, Sherman is now due to have a working dinner with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Sunday evening, said a State Department spokesperson.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, dismissing Moscow’s demands as “gaslighting”, has insisted that talks will yield no progress so long as Russia has a “gun to Ukraine’s head”.

“We’re prepared to respond forcefully to further Russian aggression. But a diplomatic solution is still possible and preferable if Russia chooses it,” Blinken said Friday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met his US counterpart Joe Biden in Geneva in June and agreed on regular “stability” talks between Sherman and Ryabkov, who will again lead the Russian delegation.

‘Massive’ retaliation

In two phone calls to Putin, Biden has warned of severe consequences if Russia invades Ukraine.

Measures under consideration include sanctions on Putin’s inner circle, cancelling Russia’s controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany or, in the most drastic scenario, severing Russia’s links to the world’s banking system.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, warned that Washington would also send more troops to eastern NATO members such as Poland and the Baltics if Russia invaded. 

Europeans have showed solidarity, with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell visiting the frontline in Ukraine, although some nations are expected to hesitate at the strongest measures.

“Whatever the solution, Europe has to be involved,” EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said.

Russia insists it was deceived after the Cold War and understood that NATO would not expand.

Instead, the US-led alliance accepted most of the former Warsaw Pact nations and the three Baltic nations that were under Soviet rule.

Russia has inflicted intense pressure on neighbouring Ukraine since 2014 after a revolution overthrew a government that had sided with the Kremlin against moving closer to Europe.

Russia seized the Crimean peninsula and backs an insurgency in eastern Ukraine in which more than 13,000 people have died.

At a time that Russia is also intervening to shore up allies facing popular uprisings in Belarus and Kazakhstan, Moscow has insisted it wants concrete progress in talks with Washington.

Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yury Ushakov warned after the call with Biden that the United States would make a “colossal mistake” if it went ahead with sanctions.

‘Gigantic bluff’?

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, meeting foreign ministers of the alliance on Friday, said there remained real risks of a Russian invasion.

But John Herbst, a former US ambassador to Ukraine, described the Russian troop build-up as a “gigantic bluff” by Putin to seek a negotiated agreement.

“They are trying to see if the Biden administration or Europe will blink,” said Herbst, now at the Atlantic Council think tank.

“As long as the Biden administration remains at least as strong as it is now,” he said, “it probably is enough to keep Putin from striking large into Ukraine, but I don’t rule out something smaller.”

Matthew Rojansky, director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, said the Geneva talks were more about preventing the Ukraine crisis from accelerating than reaching a major deal.

“I think this is about pulling the pendulum back, if we can, towards thicker interaction and more effective diplomacy and communication — not permanent and forever resolution of all problems.”

While also downplaying the possibility of a full-scale invasion, Rojansky said the risks of the Russian build-up were real.

“There is the principle of Chekhov — you put a loaded gun on the stage in Act One and it has to be fired by Act Three.”

Source: AFP

Former US president Donald Trump on Monday enthusiastically backed the reelection of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a hero of the far-right who has been accused of creeping authoritarianism.

In a statement issued along the lines of his frequent blessings to Republican candidates in primary elections at home, Trump wrote that the Hungarian leader has his “Complete support and Endorsement” in elections expected in April.

“He has done a powerful and wonderful job in protecting Hungary, stopping illegal immigration, creating jobs, trade, and should be allowed to continue to do so in the upcoming Election. He is a strong leader and respected by all,” Trump wrote.

Trump welcomed Orban to the White House in 2019, a symbolic acceptance for the prime minister who frequently clashes with the European Union leadership and was snubbed both by President Joe Biden and Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama.

Some Trump administration officials argued at the time that the goal was to keep in the Western fold a leader who had flirted with Russia, and then secretary of state Mike Pompeo made a point of meeting activists who ran afoul of Orban during a visit to Budapest.

But Orban has increasingly been hailed both by Trump’s wing of the Republican Party and European far-right leaders such as France’s Marine Le Pen, especially over his refusal to accept refugees.

Tucker Carlson, a Fox News host close to Trump, broadcast last year from Budapest and was given an interview with Orban as well as a helicopter tour of a border fence.

Orban has also sought to mobilize support on opposition to LGBTQ rights, with a ban on “promotion and display” of homosexuality and a related referendum expected on the same day as the election.

Orban, who has been in charge since 2010, faces a potentially serious challenge from Peter Marki-Zay, who describes himself as a traditional Catholic conservative and has vowed to scrap homophobic laws if elected.

Source: AFP

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un capped off his 10th year in power with a speech that made more mention of tractor factories and school uniforms than nuclear weapons or the United States, according to summaries by state media on Saturday.

North Korea’s main goals for 2022 will be jump starting economic development and improving people’s lives as it faces a “great life-and-death struggle,” Kim said in a speech on Friday at the end of the 4th Plenary Meeting of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), which began on Monday.

The meetings coincided with the 10-year anniversary of Kim effectively assuming leadership of the country after the death of his father in 2011.

Kim has used previous speeches around the New Year to make major policy announcements, including launching significant diplomatic engagements with South Korea and the United States.

But summaries of his speech published in North Korean state media made no specific mention of the United States, with only a passing reference to unspecified discussions of inter-Korean relations and “external affairs.”

The domestic focus of the speech underscored the economic problems Kim faces at home, where self-imposed anti-pandemic border lockdowns have left North Korea more isolated than ever before, with international aid organisations warning of possible food shortages and a humanitarian crisis.

“The main task facing our Party and people next year is to provide a sure guarantee for the implementation of the five-year plan and bring about a remarkable change in the state development and the people’s standard of living,” Kim was quoted as saying.

Kim spent the majority of his speech detailing domestic issues from an ambitious plan for rural development to people’s diets, school uniforms and the need to crack down on “non-socialist practices.”

The big focus on rural development is likely a populist strategy, said Chad O’Carroll, founder of NK News, a Seoul-based website that tracks North Korea.

“Overall, Kim might be aware that revealing sophisticated military development plans while people are suffering food shortages and harsh conditions outside of Pyongyang might not be such a good idea this year,” he wrote on Twitter.

Saturday’s state media report cited the development of “one ultra-modern weapon system after another” as a major achievement of the past year and said Kim called for bolstering the national defence to face an unstable international situation.

A tractor factory he discussed in the speech was likely used to build launch vehicles for missiles, foreign analysts have said, and North Korea is believed to have expanded its arsenal despite the lockdowns.

The reports of Kim’s speech did not mention the United States’ call for denuclearisation talks, or South Korea’s push for a declaration to formally end the 1950-1953 Korean War as a way to restart those negotiations.

North Korea has previously said it is open to diplomacy, but that the American overtures appear hollow while “hostile acts” such as military drills and sanctions continue.

Source: REUTERS