North Korea ends test moratoriums, threatens 'new' weapon
Seoul: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared an end to moratoriums on nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests and threatened a demonstration of a "new strategic weapon" soon.
Analysts said the announcement, reported by state media on Wednesday, amounted to Kim putting a missile "to Donald Trump's head" -- but warned that escalation by Pyongyang would probably backfire.
Washington was swift to respond, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging Kim to "take a different course" and stressing that the US wanted "peace not confrontation" with the North, while Trump played down the development.
Pyongyang has previously fired missiles capable of reaching the entire US mainland, and has carried out six nuclear tests, the last of them 16 times more powerful than the Hiroshima blast, according to the highest estimates.
A self-imposed ban on such tests -- Kim declared they were no longer needed -- has been a centrepiece of the nuclear diplomacy between Pyongyang and Washington over the past two years, which has seen three meetings between Kim and US President Donald Trump, but little tangible progress.
Any actual test is likely to infuriate Trump, who has repeatedly referred to Kim's "promise" to him not to carry them out, and has downplayed launches of shorter-range weapons.
Negotiations between the two sides have been largely deadlocked since the breakup of their Hanoi summit in February, and the North set the US an end-of-year deadline for it to offer fresh concessions on sanctions relief, or it would adopt a "new way".
"There is no ground for us to get unilaterally bound to the commitment any longer," the official KCNA news agency cited Kim as telling top ruling party officials.
"The world will witness a new strategic weapon to be possessed by the DPRK in the near future," he added, referring to the North by its official name. The full meeting of the central committee of the ruling Workers' Party was an indication of a major policy shift.
State television showed veteran newsreader Ri Chun Hee reading out the KCNA dispatch over footage of Kim addressing the officials and general imagery of the country.
The broadcast appeared to stand in place of Kim's usual New Year speech -- normally a key moment in the North Korean political calendar.
Kim acknowledged the impact of international sanctions imposed on Pyongyang over its weapons programmes, but made clear that the North was willing to pay the price to preserve its nuclear capability.
"The US is raising demands contrary to the fundamental interests of our state and is adopting brigandish attitude," KCNA cited him as saying.
Washington had "conducted tens of big and small joint military drills which its president personally promised to stop" and sent high-tech military equipment to the South, he said.
For months, Pyongyang has been demanding the easing of international sanctions imposed over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, while Washington has insisted it takes more tangible steps towards giving them up.
"North Korea has, in effect, put an ICBM to Donald Trump's head in order to gain the two concessions it wants most: sanctions relief and some sort of security guarantee," said Harry Kazianis of the Center for the National Interest in Washington.
"Kim Jong-un is playing a dangerous game of geopolitical chicken," he added.
The strategy was risky, he said, as Washington was likely to respond with "more sanctions, an increased military presence in East Asia and more fire and fury style threats coming from Donald Trump's Twitter account".
Kim's moratorium comments were "ominous", said Leif-Eric Easley of Ewha University in Seoul, but added that he could be looking to "elicit concessions by approaching Trump's red line without crossing it".
The US has already indicated that it will react if the North carries out a long-range missile test.
Speaking to Fox News and CBS after Kim's announcement, Pompeo said a resumption of nuclear and missile tests would be "deeply disappointing".
"We hope that Chairman Kim will take a different course... that he'll choose peace and prosperity over conflict and war," Pompeo said. "We want peace, not confrontation," he added, with Seoul's unification ministry adding that a strategic weapon test "would not help denuclearisation negotiations".
Trump himself was emollient, saying that he thought Kim was "a man of his word" and that at their Singapore summit "We did sign a contract, talking about denuclearisation".
An ICBM launch would be likely to frustrate China, the North's key diplomatic backer and provider of trade and aid, which always stresses stability in a region it regards as its own back yard. (AFP)
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Baramati plane crash: Rohit Pawar alleges attempts to shield VSR Ventures
Mumbai (PTI): NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar on Wednesday alleged that someone was trying to save VSR Ventures in connection with the plane crash that killed Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, and claimed that the AAIB preliminary probe vindicated the doubts earlier raised by him.
He also accused VSR company of indulging in several grave lapses in the past.
The Learjet 45 aircraft, operated by VSR Ventures, crashed near the Baramati air strip in Pune district on January 28, killing Pawar and four others.
In its 22-page preliminary report on the VSR Venture's Learjet plane crash, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) said the visibility at the time of the crash was below the required level. It also flagged about fading marks on the runway and presence of loose gravels on the runway surface.
Pawar said, "I am not against VSR or the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). Ajitdada was travelling in a VSR aircraft. Unless we go into the depth of every aspect, we will not know the truth. But someone is trying to save this company. The doubts we had raised have been proven correct in the inquiry report."
He also claimed that the AAIB report contained discrepancies, including mentioning Baramati as a district, and questioned how seriously the probe had been conducted.
Pawar, who has been regularly holding press conferences to raise issues concerning the Baramati plane crash, also contested the report's conclusion that the aircraft hit trees before crashing.
"The report says the aircraft struck trees and then fell. But there are no trees at that spot. There is only a small bush which the aircraft did not even touch. What is stated in the report about hitting trees is incorrect," he said.
Pawar further alleged that VSR Ventures had displayed irresponsibility on multiple occasions, citing an incident involving the then chief minister Eknath Shinde's Davos visit on January 20, 2023.
He claimed that the aircraft carrying Shinde had entered Iranian and Iraqi airspace without overflight permission, following which fighter jets from the two countries allegedly warned of action, forcing a change in route from Bahrain to Zurich.
"There have been several such grave lapses by VSR," he said.
Pawar demanded to know from where VSR Ventures derived its "audacity", and sought details about its investors and officials, though he added that he was not personally concerned with who they were.
Drawing a comparison, he said the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had taken over the probe into actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death within two days, whereas a month had passed since the Baramati crash without a similar action.
He claimed that VSR Ventures had two directors and three shareholders, and that there were eight common names across two related companies.
He further alleged that the owner of VSR was related to the Union Civil Aviation Minister and questioned why the company, though registered in Delhi, had made high-value investments in Jubilee Hills (upscale area in Hyderabad) at rates allegedly Rs 17 crore above the market price.
The MLA representing the Karjat-Jamkhed assembly constituency in Ahilyanagar district also raised concerns about the legal and institutional framework of the AAIB under the 2017 rules, claiming it was neither a statutory nor an autonomous body and remained answerable to the secretary and the minister, besides being attached to the DGCA.
"There is no independent investigative agency," he alleged.
