U.S. and North Korea trade barbs, but both keeping options open as deadline looms

Insults and threats are again being hurled between the United States and North Korea as tensions soar to heights unseen in the last two years ahead of a unilateral year-end deadline set by Pyongyang for progress in nuclear talks.

While North Korea has deployed some of its most senior officials to lay into the White House — including directly targeting President Donald Trump — over Washington's position in the stalled nuclear talks, the U.S. has requested that the United Nations Security Council meet Wednesday to discuss a "comprehensive update on recent developments" and the possibility of a fresh provocation by Pyongyang.

"In light of recent events on the Korean Peninsula and the President's Dec. 5 meeting with the Permanent Representatives to the U.N. Security Council, the State Department is instructing USUN to propose to have the U.N. Security Council discussion on North Korea this week include a comprehensive update on recent developments on the Korean Peninsula, including recent missile launches and the possibility of an escalatory DPRK provocation," a State Department spokesperson told The Japan Times.