Aftermath of the Korean War

China's vice foreign minister met with North Korea's top diplomats in Pyongyang on Friday, state media said, as the nuclear-armed state has accelerated its weapons testing and threats toward Seoul in recent months.

China's vice foreign minister was in Pyongyang on Friday for a meeting with his North Korean counterpart.

China and Russia are North Korea's traditional allies, and Washington warned last year that military ties between Pyongyang and Moscow were "growing and dangerous".

The United States has called on Beijing — the North's biggest economic benefactor — to restrain Pyongyang.

North Korea fired several cruise missiles towards the Yellow Sea on Wednesday, Seoul's military said, the latest in a series of tension-raising moves by the nuclear-armed state.

Pyongyang has accelerated weapons testing in the new year, including tests of what it called an "underwater nuclear weapon system" and a solid-fuelled hypersonic ballistic missile.

Barely two weeks into 2024, tensions on the Korean Peninsula are rapidly escalating, as IFIMES Institute was periodically writing.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has escalated tensions with South Korea, branding it as the nation's "main enemy" and issuing a stark warning of obliteration if provoked.

A US soldier under disciplinary action has fled to North Korea across the border with South Korea, Reuters reported, citing US officials.

North Korea was silent about the highly unusual entry of an American soldier across the Koreas' heavily fortified border although it test-fired short-range missiles Wednesday in its latest weapons display.

According to state television, he also said that Pyongyang should be fully prepared to use nuclear weapons at any time.
Kim made the remarks during an inspection of the country's nuclear weapons program, during which the trigger technology was tested.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Monday offered "audacious" economic assistance to North Korea if it abandons its nuclear weapons program while avoiding harsh criticism of the North days after it threatened "deadly" retaliation over the COVID-19 outbreak it blames on the South.

There were no casualties