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Photographs have been released of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un visiting an army command and appearing to review its plans to strike the area around Guam with four missiles.
The photos, released with a report from the North's KCNA news agency, come as the leader said today he would hold off a planned missile strike, warning he would go ahead in the event of further “reckless actions” from Washington.
KCNA said Mr Kim was briefed on the “plan for an enveloping fire at Guam” during yesterday’s inspection of the Strategic Force command in charge of the nuclear-armed state’s missile units.
During the visit, he was photographed looking at a map while being briefed by military officers.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is seen reviewing a plan for an attack on Guam.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is seen reviewing a plan for an attack on Guam.
Mr Kim is shown sitting with other generals including Kim Jong Sik, a veteran rocket scientist behind North Korea’s missile programme, in a war room where other maps of operational zones in South Korea and Japan are hanging on a wall.
Some analysts suggested Mr Kim's comments today opened a possible path to de-escalating a growing crisis fuelled by a bellicose war of words between US President Donald Trump and the North Korean leadership.
Their recent exchanges were focused on a North Korean threat to fire a volley of four missiles over Japan towards the US territory of Guam, which hosts several strategic military bases.
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But Mr Kim said he would "watch a little more the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees" before executing any order. If they "persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean peninsula," then North Korea would take action "as already declared," he was quoted as saying.
"In order to defuse the tensions and prevent the dangerous military conflict on the Korean peninsula, it is necessary for the US to make a proper option first," he added.
9RAW: North Korea withdraws nuclear attack on Guami
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✕ Watch 9RAW: North Korea withdraws nuclear attack on Guam
South Korean President Moon Jae-in said today there would be no military action without Seoul's consent and his government would prevent war by all means.
"Military action on the Korean peninsula can only be decided by South Korea and no one else can decide to take military action without the consent of South Korea," Moon said in a speech to commemorate the anniversary of the nation's liberation from Japanese military rule in 1945.
"The government, putting everything on the line, will block war by all means."
Mr Kim's latest announcement follows a week of heated exchanges between Pyongyang and Washington and a threat from North Korea to fire missiles into the ocean near the US territory.
North Korea's state media yesterday said Mr Kim is on the verge of being handed missile plans and cautioned that continued perceived US provocation could "lead to a nuclear war".
Last week Mr Trump declared the US is "locked and loaded" and ready to unleash "fire and fury" if North Korea continues to threaten America and its regional allies.
Yesterday, residents in Guam were rallying for peace in the face of possible North Korean missile strikes.
"Peace, not war, that's what our island is for," protesters chanted during the gathering at a park in the island's capital. A top US military officer currently in South Korea maintained the United States wants to peacefully resolve the standoff.
However, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford also underlined the US was ready to use the "full range" of its military capabilities in case of provocation.
There has been widespread debate about whether Washington would try to shoot the four intermediate-range Hwasong-12 missiles down if they're fired.
The North accused the United States of mobilising a huge number of weapons and troops for annual military drills with South Korea that begin later this month.
Pyongyang, which claims the drills are war preparation, says it will be ready to send its Guam missile launch plan to North Korean leader Mr Kim for approval just before or as the drills begin.
"What matters is that if a second conflict (on the peninsula) erupts, that cannot help but lead to a nuclear war," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary.
"We are closely monitoring every move by the United States."
The US-North Korea impasse, which has simmered since the end of the Korean War in 1953, has grown more tense in recent months over worries that the North's nuclear weapons program is nearing the ability to target the US mainland.
Pyongyang tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles l
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