US President Barack Obama waves as he boards Air Force One on the tarmac at airport Langenhagen near Hannover, central Germany, on April 25, 2016. (AFP photo)
President Barack Obama says the United States is positioning missile systems and establishing a “shield” to counter threats from North Korea.
“One of the things that we have been doing is spending a lot more time positioning our missile development systems, so that even as we try to resolve the underlying problem of nuclear development inside of North Korea,” Obama said in an interview with CBS News which aired on Tuesday.
“We’re also setting up a shield that can at least block the relatively low-level threats that they're posing now,” he added.
Pyongyang declared itself a nuclear power in 2005 and carried out four nuclear weapons tests in 2006, 2009, 2013 and 2016.
South Korea’s president said Tuesday that the North is in final stages of preparations to conduct a fifth nuclear test as the country has reportedly placed a new mid-range missile on standby. The South Korean military has also said Pyongyang is technically ready for a nuclear test.
Pyongyang announced Sunday that it test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine as a response to ongoing military drills by South Korea and the US.
A day before the test, the North Korean foreign minister proposed that the country was ready to halt its nuclear tests if the United States abandons its military exercises in the region.
Obama dismissed the offer Sunday and said North Korea would “have to do better than that.”
“We don't take seriously a promise to simply halt until the next time they decide to do a test these kinds of activities,” he said at a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Hannover.
South Korea and the US are concerned that a new nuclear test could take the North a step closer toward manufacturing a warhead small enough to place on a long-range missile.
In March, the US and South Korea began massive war games involving more than 17,000 American and 300,000 South Korean troops, with warships and aircraft carrying out live-fire drills in the region.