North Korea has taken a major step back from a planned missile test, U.S. officials said, even as Pyongyang and Seoul exchanged fresh threats Tuesday of swift military retaliation to any provocation.

President Barack Obama and South Korea's new leader Park Geun-hye will seek to present a strong front against North Korea's nuclear threats when they meet at the White House on Tuesday. But they also want to leave the door open to talks with Pyongyang.

The withdrawal from the industrial complex in North Korea's border town of Kaeseong has been completed, with the seven remaining South Koreans having returned home and US$13 million in back pay and severance pay having been delivered to the North on Friday. Now there is no predicting what will become of the industrial complex, where small South Korean manufacturers have operated for the past decade.

South Korea on Monday dismissed an “incomprehensible” list of North Korean demands for reviving suspended operations at a jointly run industrial park.

North Korea said Sunday it would not use a jailed U.S. citizen as a “bargaining chip” with Washington, and no prominent Americans would be invited to discuss his case.

Even if North Korea gives up its nuclear arms, Japan would not resume aid to the isolated state until it clears up abduction cases dating back more than three decades, a minister said Friday.

The last seven South Koreans stationed at a jointly run factory park in North Korea pulled out Friday, silencing the complex for the first time since it was launched nine years ago in a seemingly distant era of reconciliation.

South Korea on Friday jailed six nuclear power engineers and suppliers linked to a major corruption scandal that stoked public concern over safety standards.

North Korea said Thursday it had sentenced a Korean-American tour operator to 15 years' hard labor for “hostile acts,” stoking tensions with the United States which had pleaded for his release.

An international team of surgeons has successfully given a South Korean-Canadian toddler a life-saving windpipe transplant made from plastic fibers and some of her own stem cells.