Kim Jong Un urges 'positive and offensive' security measures ahead of nuclear talks deadline

North Korean leaderKimJongUncalled for "positive and offensivemeasures" to ensure the country'ssecuritybefore a year-enddeadlinehe has set for denuclearizationtalkswith theUnited States, state media KCNA said on Monday.

Kimconvened a weekend meeting of top Workers' Party officials to discuss policy matters amid rising tension over hisdeadlinefor Washington to soften its stance in stalled negotiations aimed at dismantling Pyongyang'snuclearand missile programs.

At a Sunday session,Kimsuggested action in the areas of foreign affairs, the munitions industry, and armed forces, stressing the need to take "positive and offensivemeasuresfor fully ensuring the sovereignty andsecurityof the country," KCNA said, without elaborating.

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The meeting was the largest plenary session of the party's 7th Central Committee since its first gathering in 2013underKim, according to Seoul'sUnification Ministry handling inter-Korean affairs.

The key policymaking organ drew several hundred attendees, state television showed on Monday. The committee also met in 2018 and in April but on a much smaller scale.

"By'positiveand offensivemeasures,' they might mean highly provocative action against theUnited States and also South Korea," said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at theUniversity of North Korean studies in Seoul.

KCNA said the meeting was stillunderway. It was the first time the gathering had lasted more than one day sinceKimtook power in late 2011, ministry spokesman Lee Sang-min told a regular briefing.

TheUnited States was watching the end-of-year meeting closely and hoped North Korea would choose peace over confrontation, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday.

"We still maintain our view that we can find a path forward to convince the leadership in North Korea that their best course of action is to create a better opportunity for their people by getting rid of theirnuclearweapons," Pompeo told Fox News.

North Korea has urged Washington to offer a new approach to resume negotiations, warning that it may take anunspecified "new path" if theUnited States fails to meet its expectations.

USmilitary commanders said the move could include the testing of a long-range missile, which North Korea has suspended since 2017, along withnuclearwarhead tests.

Washington would be "extraordinarily disappointed" if North Korea tests a long-range ornuclearmissile, White House nationalsecurityadviser Robert O'Brien said on Sunday, vowing to take appropriate action as a leading military and economic power.

TheUnited States had opened channels of communication with North Korea and hopedKimwould follow through on denuclearization commitments he made at summits with USPresident Donald Trump, O'Brien said.

A video released by the USAir Force and reviewed by Reuters on Monday showed a simulation of an Aegis destroyer spotting what appeared to be a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile being fired towards the Pacific over the skies of Japan, prompting the launch of ground interceptor missiles.

The 65-second clip was dated September and released on December2 on the website of the USDefense Visual Information Distribution Service.

A South Korean military source said while it was largely a regular promotional video, its release coincided with heightened tensions amid a recent series of North Korean weapons tests and a war of words between Pyongyang and Washington.

North Korea's economy seemed to be another key item on the agenda for the second-day session, Yang said, with the economy hit by international sanctions over its weapons programs.

KCNA saidKimdiscussed state management and economic issues in line with his campaign to build an "independent economy."

Kim"presented the tasks for urgently correcting the grave situation of the major industrial sectors of the national economy," KCNA said.

In New York, USSecurityCouncil members were scheduled to hold an informal meeting on Monday to contemplate a Russian and Chinese proposal to ease sanctions on North Korea.

Russia and China proposed a draft UNSecurityCouncil resolution this month that would lift some sanctions in a bid to kick-start the denuclearizationtalks.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the proposal was aimed at promoting thetalksprocess and to "satisfy reasonable humanitarian and livelihood requirements" from North Korea.

"China hopes that when it comes to the peninsula issue,SecurityCouncil members can assume their responsibilities and take proactive steps to support a political resolution," he told a daily news briefing.

The move is seen as an attempt to create a crack in a US-led global campaign to pressure North Korea to give up its weapons programmes amid lackluster progress in the negotiations.

Sanctions on industries that earned North Korea hundreds of millions of dollars a year were imposed in 2016 and 2017 to cut off funding for Pyongyang's weapons programs.