US Defense Secretary says diplomatic efforts needed in North Korea crisis

US Defense Secretary James (Jim) Mattis emphasised diplomatic efforts instead of military ones to resolve the crisis with North Korea as he stood at the tense and heavily-fortified border between North and South on Friday, saying, "Our goal is not war."

He also said America's goal is to convince the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to give up his nuclear arsenal. 

The visit to the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) is part of a trip aimed at easing escalating tensions between Washington and Pyongyang. 

Mattis said there has been no change in US policy protecting South Korea, in the face of missile and nuclear threats from the reclusive North, after a meeting with the South Korean president.

"North Korean provocations continue to threaten regional and global security despite unanimous condemnation by the United Nations Security Council," Mattis said.

"As Secretary of State Tillerson has made clear, our goal is not war, but rather the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula."

Standing alongside Mattis, South Korean Defence Minister Song Young-moo said, "We together will continue to defend peace through strong will and strong might."

In a press release distributed by South Korea's presidential office after the meeting, the US secretary of defence was also cited as saying North Korea's obsession with its weapons programmes presented a threat to the United States, as well as South Korea.

South Korea's President Moon Jae-in said the "aggressive deployment" of US strategic assets on the Korean peninsula has been effective in deterring North Korea's provocations.

North to release South fishing boat

Separately, North Korea said it will release on Friday a South Korean fishing boat that was found to be in North Korean waters illegally, state media said, as the US defence secretary visited the border dividing the Korean peninsula.

Tension between North Korea and the United States has been building after a series of weapons tests by Pyongyang and bellicose verbal exchanges between Trump and Kim Jong-un, stoking fears any miscalculation could lead to an armed confrontation.

The proposed return of the South Korean fishing boat and its crew would avoid potentially worsening already strained relations between Pyongyang and South Korea and its US ally.

The South Korean fishing boat was seized on October 21. An investigation by the North found the boat and crew entered North Korean waters for fishing, state news agency KCNA reported.

North Korea decided to release the boat after "taking into account the fact that all the crewmen honestly admitted their offence, repeatedly apologising and asking for leniency," the report said in English.

The vessel and its crew would be released in waters at the military boundary between the two Koreas, which are still technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

North Korean fishing boats have at times been found drifting south of the maritime border between the two Koreas, often having run out of fuel or broken down.

Most North Korean crew are released to the North after interrogations by intelligence officials if they wish to return. It is more unusual for South Korean fishing vessels to be found in similar circumstances.

A South Korean Unification Ministry official said it was aware the fishing boat had gone missing earlier in the week. The crew of 10 – seven South Koreans and three Vietnamese – would be questioned by officials on their return, he added.