North Korea is open to direct talks with the US over their nuclear standoff, according to the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, who said he passed that message to his counterpart, Rex Tillerson, when the two diplomats met in Vienna on Thursday. 
 
 There was no immediate response from Tillerson but the official position of the state department is that North Korea would have to show itself to be serious about giving up its nuclear arsenal as part of a comprehensive agreement before a dialogue could begin. 
 
 Lavrov conveyed the apparent offer on the day a top UN official, Jeffrey Feltman, met the North Korean foreign minister, Ri Yong-ho, in Pyongyang, during the first high-level UN visit to the country for six years. Feltman is an American and a former US diplomat, but the state department stressed he was not in North Korea with any message from Washington. 
 
 How has North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme progressed this year? Read more 
 
 “We know that North Korea wants above all to talk to the United States about guarantees for its security. We are ready to support that, we are ready to take part in facilitating such negotiations,” Lavrov said at an international conference in Vienna, according to the Interfax news agency. “Our American colleagues, [including] Rex Tillerson, have heard this.” 
 
 The diplomatic moves come amid an increased sense of urgency to find a way of defusing the tensions over North Korea’s increasingly ambitious nuclear and missile tests. The standoff reached a new peak on 29 November, when North Korea tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Hwasong-15, capable of reaching Washington, New York and the rest of the continental United States. The missile launch followed the test of what was apparently a hydrogen bomb in September. 
 
 Q&A What do we know about the Hwasong-15 missile? Show Hide The Hwasong-15 missile fired on 29 November flew on a steep trajectory for 50 minutes, reaching an altitude of 2,800 miles (4,500 km) and distance of 620 miles, according to North Korea. The US-based Union of Concerned Scientists said that if the numbers were correct, then the missile would have a range of 8,080 miles on a standard trajectory. That figure suggests that all of the US could theoretically be within range. The missile appears to be an advanced version of the Hwasong-15 ICBM tested in July by North Korea, which claims this version makes it a "complete" nuclear state. Pyongyang has not, however, proved it has the capability to marry a miniaturised nuclear warhead with a long-range missile and send it at a trajectory that would hit US cities. It also remains unclear whether the North Koreans have perfected a re-entry vehicle capable of protecting a nuclear warhead during its descent. Photograph: Kim Hong-Ji/X90173 
 
 Pyongyang has said that current joint exercises by the US and South Korea involving hundreds of warplanes, along with “bellicose remarks” by US officials have “made an outbreak of war on the Korean peninsula an established fact”. 
 
 “The remaining question now is: when will the war break out,” a foreign ministry spokesman said on Wednesday. 
 
 North Korean officials have said in recent informal meetings that they are particularly concerned by the threat of a surprise “decapitation” strike, aimed at killing the country’s leaders and paralysing military command and control systems before Pyongyang could launch its missiles. 
 
 The heightened tensions and threatening language have increased fears around the world that the two sides could blunder into war through miscalculation, mistaking war games for a real attack or misreading blurred red lines. 
 
 US and North Korean positions are currently far apart, with Pyongyang rejecting any suggestion that its nuclear disarmament would be on the table at any future negotiation. The regime wants the US to recognise it as a nuclear weapons power and cease its “hostile policies” to North Korea, including sanctions and military manoeuvres off the Korean peninsula. 
 
 For its part, the US has rejected a “freeze-for-freeze” proposal advanced by Russia and China, by which North Korea would suspend nuclear and missile tests while the US would curtail its military exercises. 
 
 State department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said on Thursday that direct talks with North Korea were “not on the table until they are willing to denuclearize.” 
 
 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest A photo released by the North Korean Central News Agency shows the launch of the inter-continental ballistic missile Hwasong-15 on 29 November. Photograph: KCNA/EPA 
 
 However, the two sides have had informal contacts this year, involving Joseph Yun, the US special representative for North Korea policy. Those contacts, known as the “New York channel” were cut by the North Koreans after threatening remarks by Donald Trump during the UN general assembly in September. But there have been some recent signs that Pyongyang might be interested in restoring the channel. 
 
 At a meeting in Stockholm that brought together western experts and officials from Pyongyang in late November, a North Korean representative appeared to raise, for the first time, the possibility of a channel for military-to-military communication with the US. 
 
 “In an informal discussion that we had in Stockholm, an official made an observation that there isn’t at present a way for the US and North Korea to work together to prevent an accident. I thought that was an interesting observation that I had not heard them say before,” said Suzanne DiMaggio, a senior fellow at the New America thinktank who has played a leading role in back-channel contacts with Iran and North Korea, and who attended the Stockholm meeting. 
 
 Donald Trump's menacing talk on North Korea is leaving the US isolated Read more 
 
 “I think the US would be best served by putting aside the focus on denuclearisation and instead look at ways to prevent accidents, reduce risks and de-escalate. Those to me seem like achievable goals.” 
 
 Sue Mi Terry, a former CIA analyst who was director for Korea, Japan and Oceanic affairs at the national security council in the Bush and Obama administrations, said Washington might be amenable to such a military hotline being established. 
 
 “I think even this administration recognises that some sort of an open channel is needed for that, not to negotiate but to have a little more transparency,” she said. “I think everyone recognises that is needed.” 
 
 Terry, who was deputy national intelligence officer for east Asia at the national intelligence council from 2009 to 2010, said that it was also possible that Yun could re-establish the New York channel with Pyongyang. But she added there was little sign such contacts would lead to substantive negotiations in the current climate. 
 
 “This latest test put a big hole in the possibility of negotiation at this moment, she said. “Ambassador Yun might do that but it’s different with the White House. I’m not sure he has strong White House support.” 
 
 ||||| Japan plans to make its first purchase of missiles that could target North Korean military bases from long distance, a major military upgrade as a rising nuclear threat from Pyongyang sparks a regional arms race. 
 
 The decision, announced Friday, includes the potential purchase of missiles from Lockheed Martin Corp. and is likely to be welcomed by President Donald Trump. During a visit to Tokyo in November, Mr. Trump called for Japan to buy “massive” amounts of military equipment from the U.S. 
 
 ... ||||| Tokyo (CNN) Japan will for the first time buy long-range missiles to counter the country's "increasingly severe" national security situation, Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said. 
 
 "We will implement stand-off missiles capable of defending ourselves adequately, when we are outside the range of the opponent, in order to ensure the safety of the Self Defense Force and to defend our nation effectively," Onodera told reporters. 
 
 A spokesman from Onodera's office told CNN Japan will be purchasing two typesof missiles -- Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles -- from Lockheed Martin to put on its F-15 fighter jets. 
 
 It will also buy Joint Strike Missiles from the Norwegian company Kongsberg to be deployed on new, state-of-the-art F-35 stealth fighter jets which are just joining the Japan Air Self Defense Force fleet. 
 
 The spokesman also said Japan will be making an additional request in next year's budget to make the purchase. 
 
 Though Onodera did not mention North Korea by name in the announcement, Pyongyang's fast-progressing nuclear and missile programs have had Japan and other countries in East Asia on edge. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the test-firing of two missiles that overflew northern Japan this year, which set off warning sirens. The United Nations passed the most punishing sanctions ever levied against North Korea shortly after. 
 
 "North Korea's advancements made it inevitable that Tokyo and Seoul would purchase standoff strike capabilities," Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, told CNN in an email. 
 
 "Standoff missiles will ensure that Japan has a credible response to attacks against its territory, which will help them deter these strikes in the first place." 
 
 The news of the purchase itself comes about a month after US President Donald Trump visited Tokyo and suggested Japan should buy US military equipment. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Trump on North Korea: What he said in Asia Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump on North Korea: What he said in Asia 01:39 
 
 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was re-elected by a landslide in October's national elections after campaigning on a platform to continue his tough approach toward Pyongyang. 
 
 In the face of an increasingly hostile North Korea, Abe set a deadline of 2020 to revise Japan's constitution, which contains language that bans the country's military from undertaking many offensive capabilities. The proposal is controversial because it strikes at the heart of the country's post-war identity. 
 
 The missiles purchased would give Japanese fighter jets the ability to strike ground- or sea-based targets of all its neighbors, including China. 
 
 "As we rush to respond to North Korea's advancements, almost nobody is thinking about the long-term implications for regional stability. These new capabilities will exacerbate China's worry that it is being encircled," said Mount. 
 
 China, which suffered heavily when the Japanese occupied parts of the country during World War II, is likely to view the purchases with unease. Tokyo and Beijing have long feuded over other regional issues, including the disputed ownership of uninhabited islands in the waters near both countries. 
 
 "The developments will surely cause new tensions with China," Mount said. 
 
 Experts believe that one of the key reasons Beijing opposes North Korea's development of nuclear weapons is the concern that it could fuel an arms race in the region, especially with Tokyo, a historic adversary. 
 
 Beijing was strongly opposed to South Korea's deployment of the US-built Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, a defensive weapon designed to shoot down ballistic missiles before they can cause damage. Weapons experts believe China worried about the system's powerful radar, the coverage of which extends into Chinese territory. 
 
 The deployment led to a months-long freeze in relations between Seoul and Beijing, which was resolved in October. 
 
 'An established fact' 
 
 The North Korean threat to the United States and its allies has come back to the forefront after a brief lull in recent weeks. Pyongyang test-fired what is believed to be its most advanced long-range missile in the final days of November, demonstrating a range of more than 8,000 miles. 
 
 After the test, White House national security adviser HR McMaster said the chance of war with North Korea is increasing by the day. 
 
 This week , the US and South Korea conducted large-scale aerial military exercises involving hundreds of aircraft and thousands of troops. North Korea views these drills with hostility and worries they could be practice for a potential invasion. 
 
 JUST WATCHED US stealth jets in South Korea for war drills Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH US stealth jets in South Korea for war drills 01:01 
 
 This week's exercises followed a large-scale naval exercise in November that saw three US Navy aircraft carriers drilling together in the Pacific for the first time in a decade. 
 
 "The large-scale nuclear war exercises conducted by the US in succession are creating touch-and-go situation on the Korean Peninsula and series of violent war remarks coming from the U.S. high-level politicians amid such circumstances have made an outbreak of war on the Korean Peninsula an established fact," a spokesman for North Korea's Foreign Minister said, according to state-run Korean Central News Agency. 
 
 "The remaining question now is: when will the war break out."
– While North Korea keeps up its taunting missile tests, Japan is making plans of its own, with North Korea seemingly in its sights. The Wall Street Journal reports Japan is set to purchase extended-range missiles that could hit the North's military bases. The country's Defense Ministry says it will ask for $19 million in next year's budget to scoop up a Norwegian-built Joint Strike Missile that can travel up to 300 miles, as well as extra funds to revamp its F-35 jet fighters to carry Lockheed Martin missiles, including the company's Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile. The latter can reach just over 600 miles—far enough to hit land targets in the North from jets near Japan. Japan's defense minister minimizes the news, saying Japan would keep its reliance on the US for any such strikes. This would mark Japan's first-ever purchase of long-range missiles, notes CNN, and the move is upsetting some who want to stick to the official pacifist stance the country has maintained since World War II. One person likely to be pleased is President Trump, who said during a November visit that Japan should buy "massive" amounts of military equipment from the US. Meanwhile, North Korea has reportedly expressed a willingness to have a sit-down with the US over the nuclear detente. The Guardian reports that Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, informed Rex Tillerson of that news Thursday when the two met in Vienna. No response from Tillerson yet, but the US State Department's stance has been that the North needs to show it's serious about giving up its nukes before a true conversation can be had.