Secretary of State John Kerry says recent rhetoric from North Korea is "unacceptable" and that the US will defend itself as well as South Korea from any threat from the North. Watch his entire news conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung Se.
By Alastair Jamieson and Andrea Mitchell, NBC News
China has expressed "serious concern" to U.S. diplomats over the North Korea crisis, it was reported Wednesday, with tensions escalating further as South Korean workers were blocked from a joint industrial zone.
A Chinese official met ambassadors from the United States and both Koreas, expressing hope that Pyongyang and Seoul could resolve their differences through talks, China?s foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said, according to Reuters and Voice of America reporter Steve Herman.
Russia also voiced concern about the rogue Communist state?s military apparatus, saying human error or technical malfunction may cause the situation on the Korean peninsula ?to go out of control,? according to a report Wednesday on Russia news service Interfax.
The comments came after Secretary of State John Kerry denounced North Korea's increasingly threatening rhetoric as "unacceptable," and said the U.S would defend its allies, South Korea and Japan, from any threat from the North.
North Korea knows what it needs to do if it wants to resume dialogue with the rest of the world, Kerry told a joint news conference at the State Department with South Korea's foreign minister on Tuesday.
Vowing to reopen the Yongbyong nuclear reactor, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un showed no sign he's listening to the outside world and has no intention of giving up their nuclear weapons. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
North Korea is blocking the entry of South Korean workers into a large joint industrial zone, Reuters and the BBC reported Wednesday.
More than 50,000 North Koreans and several hundred South Korean managers work at the Kaesong complex, which is home to more than 100 factories. Permission is granted on a daily basis for South Korean workers to cross into the complex, situated in the North, the BBC said.
South Korean workers were being allowed to leave the complex but not cross back into it.
"South Korea's government deeply regrets the entry ban and urges it be lifted immediately," South Korea official Kim Hyung-seok told reporters.
As tensions continue to flare, the U.S. Navy has deployed a second destroyer in the western Pacific to respond to any missile threats from the North.
The USS Decatur was headed back to San Diego, Calif., when it was given a new mission: to join the USS McCain in a missile defense mission, Pentagon spokesman George Little said Tuesday.
A third destroyer, the USS Fitzgerald, is also available to respond, if necessary, officials said.
David Guttenfelder / AP
As chief Asia photographer for the Associated Press, David Guttenfelder has had unprecedented access to communist North Korea. Here's a rare look at daily life in the secretive country.
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