US vows to protect South Korea amid North's threats
Washington/Seoul - Secretary of State John Kerry pledged Tuesday that the United States would defend South Korea, as North Korea added to its barrage of threats with a vow to reopen a shuttered nuclear facility.
"We've heard an extraordinary amount of unacceptable rhetoric from the North Korean government in the last days," Kerry said, "so let me be perfectly clear here today: The United States will defend and protect ourselves and our treaty ally, the Republic of Korea."
Kerry, who met Tuesday in Washington with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se to discuss the crisis, called recent rhetoric from North Korean leader Kim Yong-Un "unacceptable."
The rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula have "gone too far" and risk open conflict, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said after the official Korean Central News Agency reported the 5-megawatt reactor in the north-western city of Yongbyon would be refurbished and restarted "without delay."//DPA
