The Korean nuclear issue has now entered a dangerous stage like a fast train in a dark tunnel. The window for peaceful settlement isn’t completely closed and the current crisis should be turned to an opportunity.

North Korea announced that it has mastered nuclear strike capability and become a full-fledged nuclear state. Like previous US presidents, Donald Trump has said that this state of affairs is intolerable. So now what?

China’s proposal of a “freeze for freeze”—a halt in North Korean nuclear and missile tests in return for suspension of provocative U.S.-led military exercises—remains the best one on the table for reducing tensions on the Korean peninsula. Second, keeping nuclear weapons from getting into the wrong hands should be an international responsibility, not a U.S.-China project.

China said on Thursday there had been no U.N. sanction-breaking oil sales by Chinese ships to North Korea, after a South Korea newspaper said Chinese and North Korean vessels had been illicitly linking up at sea to get oil to North Korea.

President Trump again raised the prospect of nuclear war with North Korea, boasting in strikingly playground terms on Tuesday night that he commands a “much bigger” and “more powerful” arsenal of devastating weapons than the outlier government in Asia.

North Korea has agreed to hold high-level talks with South Korea next week as detente between the two nations picks up pace. The talks — the first inter-K

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday he would “absolutely” be willing to talk on the phone to North Korean leader Kim Jong In.

North Korea said during rare talks with the South on Tuesday it will send a delegation of high-ranking officials, athletes and a cheering squad to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea next month, according to a senior South Korean official.

The US is not attending talks between North and South Korea but its reactions will be as critical and closely watched as those who gather at the tense border for the first time in two years on Tuesday.

The U.S. government has approved the sale of anti-ballistic missiles to Japan to defend itself against a growing nuclear and missile threat from North Korea, a State Department official said on Tuesday.