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Counterparts wanting to talking about talks and negotiations. we are not dealing with a rat n rational person. and matt rivers joins from us beijing and paula hancocks in seoul. paula, to you first. how are haley s comments about re-evaluating the u.s. response to north korea and all options being on the table, how are those being read there in seoul? reporter: well, certainly south korea is going to be completely in step with the united states. it s a very close alliance and the south koreans rely on that washington umbrella that the capability of being protected by the united states. but the interesting part of what ambassador haley said was the fact that it was a personal comment about the north korean leader kjong u.n. we have seen many criticizing the nuclear missile program but ....
Comments there, i think perhaps the chinese reaction to that would be that it s not productive. and that by personally attacking the north korean leader that it doesn t really get both sides back to the negotiating table than has been the chinese consistent position for years now, ever since the six-party talks ended, the chinese say all sides in negotiations led by the united states needs to happen in order to solve this problem and peacefully denuclear rise the korean peninsula. perhaps in the chinese view, they re not thrilled about her comments. china proposed freezing their joint military dealses in exchange for north korea holding its nuclear activities. the idea swiftly rejected by washington and seoul. the question being now, what s china s next move. there s no surprise hearing that because that has been something he s proposed before. if you stop the missile test, ....
Past. reporter: dave, what we know from the four missiles this morning, according to the u.s. and south korea is they went about 600 miles in distance. they also went as high as 160 miles plus. that shows the range is much further. ago according to one official. reports suggest this is an intermediate missile. we have not had confirmation yet. washington and seoul and tokyo poring over the data. we have seen the range before. not recently. we have seen some relative restraint from north korea before the u.s. election with one previous missile a few weeks ago. that again was a missile that a to experts. it was harder to track. ....
Inside the president defended her role in the investigation of a bombing at a jewish community center. she had been accused of conspiring to cover up iran s alleged involvement. a judge officially declared her cleared her on friday. and thousands of u.s. and south korean troops are beginning the annual military exercises on the korean peninsula. north korea is responding with missile launches. our paula hancock is joining us live from seoul. the annual military exercises usually trigger a surge in tension. this time we are hearing some particularly divisive harsh frederick pyongyang. does seoul have anything to be worried about particularly this time around? reporter: this rhetoric is really to be expected at this time. as you say, this is the jittery season, the season where the u.s. and south korea carry out joint military drills which last ....
A couple of months. we could be seeing this rhetoric for some weeks to come. also the missile launch that we saw this morning, two short-range ballistic missiles fired into the seas off the east coast of korea. we know that seoul has been responding angrily to these, we understand from the defense ministry spokesmen, that they didn t have any warning. there wasn t a no sails before the launch, dangerous for vessels in the area. they said it was a provocative act. we have heard the north korean leader kim jong-un, said he wants his troops ready for a war. he s made them mad combat ready, according to state-run media, believing that these military drills by washington and seoul are a precursor to an invasion to which both washington and seoul deny saying they re defense 95 nature. we hear from the japanese, as ....