'High possibility' of conflict amid missile crisis, says South Korean president

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Wednesdaythere was a "high possibility" of conflict with North Korea, which is pressing ahead with nuclear and missile programs it says it needs to counter U.S. aggression.

The comments came hours after the South, which hosts 28,500U.S. troops, said it wanted to reopen a channel of dialogue withNorth Korea as Moon seeks a two-track policy, involvingsanctions and dialogue, to try to rein in its neighbour.

North Korea has made no secret that it isworking to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of strikingthe U.S. mainland and has ignored calls to halt its nuclear andmissile programs, even from China, its lone major ally.

• North Korea says missile launch was to test carrying large nuclear warhead
• UN Security Council unanimously condemns North Korea missile test

It conducted its latest ballistic missile launch, indefiance of UN Security Council resolutions, on Sunday. North Korea said itwas a test of its capability to carry a "large-size heavynuclear warhead", drawing Security Council condemnation.

"I will never overlook such provocations and nuclear threats of North Korea," Moon said. "I will strongly respond to this along with the international community. The reality of today's national security is that there are military tensions and a high possibility of military conflict at theNLL [Northern Limit Line, a de facto maritime boundary between North and South Korea]and the military demarcation line."

He also said the North's nuclear and missile capabilitiesseem to have advanced rapidly recently but that the South wasready and capable of striking back should the North attack.

Moon won an election last week campaigning on a moremoderate approach towards the North and said after taking officethat he wants to pursue dialogue as well as pressure.But he has said the North must change its attitude of
insisting on pressing ahead with its arms development beforedialogue is possible.

South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Duk-haengtold reporters the government's most basic stance is thatcommunication lines between South and North Korea should reopen.

"The Unification Ministry has considered options on thisinternally but nothing has been decided yet," said Lee.

South's envoy to U.S. heads to Washington

Communications were severed by the North last year, Leesaid, in the wake of new sanctions following North Korea's fifthnuclear test and Pyongyang's decision to shut down a jointindustrial zone operated inside the North.

North Korea and the rich, democratic South are technicallystill at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce,not a peace treaty. The North defends its weapons programs as necessary to counter U.S. hostility and regularly threatens to destroy the United States.

Moon's envoy to the United States, South Korean media mogulHong Seok-hyun, left for Washington on Wednesday. Hong saidSouth Korea had not yet received official word from the UnitedStates on whether Seoul should pay for an anti-missile U.S.
radar system that has been deployed outside Seoul.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he wants South Korea topay for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD)anti-missile system, which detected Sunday's test launch.

China opposed to missile detection system

China has strongly opposed THAAD, saying it can spy into itsterritory, and South Korean companies have been hit in China bya nationalist backlash over the deployment.

The United States said on Tuesday it believed it couldpersuade China to impose new UNsanctions on North Korea andwarned that Washington would also target and "call out"countries supporting Pyongyang.

Speaking to reporters ahead of a closed-door UNSecurityCouncil meeting, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations NikkiHaley also made clear that Washington would only talk to NorthKorea once it halted its nuclear program.

As about Haley's comments, Chinese Foreign Ministryspokesperson Hua Chunying said China would work hard at reducingtensions on the Korean peninsula and finding a peacefulresolution.

• Trump wants diplomatic solution on North Korea but warns 'major, major conflict' possible
• Why 'miscalculation is the enemy' that could spark a U.S.-North Korea conflict

Trump has called for an immediate halt to North Korea'smissile and nuclear tests and U.S. Disarmament Ambassador RobertWood said on Tuesday that China's leverage was key and Beijingcould do more.

Trump warned this month that a "major, major conflict" withNorth Korea was possible, and in a show of force, sent the CarlVinson aircraft carrier strike group to Korean waters to conductdrills with South Korea and Japan.

The U.S. troop presence in South Korea, a legacy of theKorean War, is primarily to guard against the North Koreanthreat.