On Monday, Pyongyang said it had abrogated the 1953 armistice that suspended the Korean War and that nonaggression agreements with the South were no longer valid.
Among other threats in the past week, North Korea has warned Seoul of a nuclear war on the divided peninsula and said it was cancelling nonaggression pacts.
Combined with South Korea's strong resistance to taking military action against the North, the U.S. could well be cornered into conceding to North Korean demands, namely, a nonaggression treaty and a military withdrawal from South Korea.
They would call for "the early adoption of a code of conduct in the South China Sea, " referring to a legally binding pact ASEAN would like to forge with China to replace a 2002 nonaggression accord that has failed to stop territorial skirmishes.