The Arab League is open to the possibility of "mutually agreed" land swaps to help find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Qatar’s prime minister said on Monday.

The statement by Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani came after meetings between Arab League representatives and Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington. Vice President Joe Biden also sat in on some of the discussions.

A major sticking point remains, however, in that the Qatari prime minister also said any new borders drawn should be based on the ones that existed in June 1967, before Israel’s Six-Day War claimed more land.

“The Arab League delegation affirmed the agreement should be based on the two-state solution on the basis of the fourth of June 1967 lines, with the [possibility] of comparable and mutually agreed minor swap of land," he said.

The borders have been a point of contention ever since, and Israel has repeatedly rejected the idea of giving up seized land.

But Monday’s language appeared more conciliatory with mentions of any land swaps being agreed upon and the prime minister’s call for “a joint justice and peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis.”

Kerry described the meetings as “very positive, very constructive discussions … with positive results.”

The foreign ministers of Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt were present, as were representatives of Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority. Hamad serves as both prime minster and foreign minister of Qatar.

Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, speaking on Israel’s Army Radio, applauded Hamad’s comments, Reuters reported.

“The news is very positive,” the service quoted Livni as saying. “In the tumultuous world around … it could allow the Palestinians to enter the room and make the needed compromises, and it sends a message to the Israeli public that this is not just about us and the Palestinians.”

Kerry and the delegates also discussed Syria on Monday with United Nations peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

A State Department official said they discussed “assistance to the Syria opposition, including our support to the SMC [Supreme Military Council], and the ongoing efforts to help consolidate moderate elements of the opposition.”

Speaking on behalf of the Arab League, Hamad said, “I think all of us” support the Syrian opposition’s April 20 declaration in Istanbul, which said the rebels would work toward a a free and democratic Syria with “no room for sectarianism or discrimination on ethnic, religious, linguistic or any other grounds.”

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TOKYO -- Secretary of State John Kerry has called on China to do more to help resolve the North Korean missile crisis, saying the country provided the Pyongyang regime with a “lifeline.”

In an interview with NBC's TODAY that aired on Monday, Kerry also said any deal with the rogue state would need to be structured so that Pyongyang could not later renege on its terms.

The crisis developed after North Korea threatened to carry out a pre-emptive nuclear strike against its enemies in response to United Nations sanctions imposed because of an underground nuclear test in February and a rocket test in December.

In recent days the North Koreans have readied missiles for launch and some speculated this would happen on Monday, when the nation celebrates the birth of founder Kim Il Sung, current leader Kim Jong Un’s grandfather.

In an interview in Tokyo before flying back to the U.S. on Monday, Kerry said that if the missiles were not fired “that would mean perhaps we're turning a corner and there's a possibility of moving in a better direction.”

“Everybody understands the negative side of what happens if there is a shoot.  And my hope is that we can move in a different direction here. China, I think, is serious about this,” he said. “They understand the instability this is creating.”

Kerry said it was “very important” for the United States to make clear to North Korea that there would be “consequences for their action” and to reaffirm its security agreements with its allies in the region.

“That done, I think it is very important to the Chinese to focus on the fact that ... if they're not prepared to put the pressure on the North -- and they have the greatest ability to have an impact on the North -- then this can become more destabilizing,” he said. “And that instability is not in China's interest, certainly. It's not in anybody's interest in the region.”

“So if we're going to operate according to what's in people's interest, China's and everybody else's, I believe China needs to become more engaged in this effort,” he said.

“It is obvious that China is the lifeline to North Korea. Everybody knows that China provides the vast majority of the fuel to North Korea.  China is their biggest trading party, their biggest food donor and so forth,” he added.

When asked about a comment by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that North Korea had a history of breaking diplomatic deals, Kerry replied: "John is absolutely correct, that has been the pattern. And I have raised that issue with the Chinese … There has been a history of ... just playing this game and then ultimately there's cheating or a complete reneging. We are determined, I am determined to try to find if there is a different formula.  And that is a … conversation that I specifically had with the Chinese.”

On Sunday, Kerry said the United States was prepared to “reach out” to North Korea’s leadership.

The United States has offered talks, but on the precondition that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions. North Korea deems its nuclear arms a "treasured sword" and has vowed never to give them up.

On Monday, North Korean state media made hardly a mention of conflict in contrast to weeks of tirades against its enemies in what some saw as good sign.

"South Korea and the United States have sent a message for dialogue, so for now the North is switching to that mode," Yang Moo-jin, of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told Reuters. "The North's strategic intention has been to try to get some kind of response from the United States and South Korea and now they have that. They won't be brushing away the suggestions to enter dialogue lightly." 

'Bright faces'
In Pyongyang on Monday, residents spilled into the streets in apparent celebration, The Associated Press reported. Girls in red and pink jackets skipped along streets festooned with celebratory banners and flags and parents pushed strollers with babies bundled up against the chill.

"Although the situation is tense, people have got bright faces and are very happy," Han Kyong Sim, a drink stand worker, told the AP. 

Slideshow: North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un

The youngest son of Kim Jong Il succeeded his late father in 2011, becoming the third member of his family to rule the unpredictable and reclusive communist state.

Launch slideshow

North Korea's state-controlled KCNA news agency reported that Kim Jong Un had received a letter from the Central Committee of the Anti-Imperialist National Democratic Front that praised his grandfather.

“The life of Kim Il Sung was an epic-like one of an invincible hero who clarified the truth that arms are a lifeline of the nation and guarantees the victory of revolution, restored the country by leading to victory the hard-fought battles against the Japanese and the U.S. imperialists,” the letter said.

The letter “pledged to join the all-people resistance to frustrate the frantic moves of the hostile forces for a nuclear war and make positive contribution to bringing about a fresh turn in the efforts for national reunification,” KCNA said.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said it remained on guard against any missile launch to coincide with Kim Il Sung’s birth, Reuters reported.

"The military is not easing up on its vigilance on the activities of the North's military with the view that they can conduct a provocation at any time," a ministry spokesman said. 

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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This story was originally published on Mon Apr 15, 2013 7:01 AM EDT

Japan and the United States cannot allow North Korea to possess nuclear weapons, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishia said Sunday after a meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry, according to Reuters.

Kerry is in Japan on a regional tour aimed at solidifying support for curbing North Korea's nuclear program.

Earlier, he was in Beijing – for the first time as secretary of state – where he sought to persuade President Xi Jinping to rein in North Korea, China's traditional ally, arguing that Pyongyang's erratic young leader, Kim Jong Un, is threatening the stability of the entire region.

Pyongyang has threatened for weeks to attack the United States, South Korea and Japan since new U.N. sanctions were imposed in response to its latest nuclear arms test in February, fuelling speculation of a new missile launch or nuclear test.

"China and the United States must together take steps in order to achieve the goal of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula, and today we agreed to have further discussions, to bear down very quickly with great specificity on exactly how we will accomplish this goal," Kerry said Saturday before flying on to Japan, the last stop on his Asian tour.

China's top diplomat echoed the goal, but wasn't specific about how pressure might be applied on North Korea, which had been threatening the United States and its "puppet" South Korea almost daily in recent weeks.

"China is firmly committed to upholding peace and stability and advancing the denuclearization process on the peninsula," Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi said.

"We maintain that the issue should be handled and resolved peacefully through dialogue and consultation," he added.

Kerry declined to comment on what specifically China may do to push for a peaceful solution on North Korea, saying only that he and Chinese officials had discussed all possibilities.

North Korea has prepped two medium-range Musudan-1 missiles waiting on its east coast, and analysts have said that it might fire one or both as a means for Kim Jong Un -- the founder's grandson -- to save face and appease his military after the weeks of saber-rattling.

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This story was originally published on Sun Apr 14, 2013 7:03 AM EDT

BEIJING -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met China's top leaders on Saturday in a bid to persuade them to exert pressure on North Korea to scale back its belligerent rhetoric and, eventually, return to nuclear talks.

Traveling to Beijing for the first time as secretary of state, Kerry made no secret of his desire to see China take a more activist stance toward North Korea, which in recent weeks has threatened nuclear war against the United States and South Korea.

As the North's main trading partner, financial backer and the closest thing it has to a diplomatic ally, China has a unique ability to use its leverage against the impoverished, isolated state, Kerry said in the South Korean capital, Seoul, on Friday before leaving for Beijing.

"Mr. President, this is obviously a critical time with some very challenging issues -- issues on the Korean Peninsula, the challenge of Iran and nuclear weapons, Syria and the Middle East, and economies around the world that are in need of a boost," Kerry told Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People.

Kerry said after the meeting that his talks with Xi were "constructive and forward-leaning", though he did not elaborate.

China had a testy relationship with Kerry's predecessor, Hillary Clinton, believing her to be too abrasive in their disagreements over everything from human rights to territorial disputes like the South China Sea.

"Clinton added fuel to the mistrust during her four-year term. We hope Kerry can pull it in the other direction," China's widely read and influential Global Times tabloid said in an editorial.

Kerry's visit to Asia, which will include a stop in Tokyo on Sunday, takes place after weeks of shrill North Korean threats of war since the imposition of new U.N. sanctions in response to its third nuclear test in February.

North Korea has repeatedly said it will not abandon nuclear weapons which it said on Friday were its "treasured" guarantor of security.

No sign of imminent missile launch
North Korean television on Saturday made no mention of Kerry's visit and devoted most of its reports to preparations for Monday's celebrations marking the birth date of state founder Kim Il-Sung.

These included a numerous floral tributes and grandiose flower show, foreign visitors seeing the sights of the capital ahead of the festivities and the unveiling of a monument in a provincial town.

But Rodong Sinmun, the ruling Workers' Party's newspaper, issued a fresh denunciation of joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises, saying: "The outbreak of nuclear war has now become a fait accompli, owing to the U.S. and the South Korean puppet forces.

"If the enemies dare provoke (North Korea) while going reckless, it will immediately blow them up with an annihilating strike with the use of powerful nuclear means."

However, South Korea's Yonhap news agency, quoting a government source, said North Korea had not moved any of its mobile missile launchers for the past two days after media reports that as many as five missiles had been moved into place on the country's east coast.

Yonhap said there had been no signs of any movement by the mobile launchers since Thursday "or that missile launches are imminent".

U.S. 'fanning the flames'?
Beijing has been reluctant to apply pressure on Pyongyang, fearing the instability that could result if the North were to implode and send floods of refugees into China, and has looked askance at U.S. military drills in South Korea.

China's official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary that Washington had itself been "fanning the flames" on the Korean peninsula with its shows of force.

"It keeps sending more fighters, bombers and missile-defense ships to the waters of East Asia and carrying out massive military drills with Asian allies in a dramatic display of preemptive power," it said.

However, U.S. officials believe China's rhetoric on North Korea has begun to shift, pointing to a recent speech by China's Xi in which -- without referring explicitly to Pyongyang -- he said no country "should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain".

Kerry told reporters in Seoul that if North Korea's 30-year-old leader went ahead with the launch of a medium-range missile, he would be making "a huge mistake."

At a news conference in Seoul on Friday and in a U.S.-South Korean joint statement issued on Saturday, Kerry signaled the U.S. preference for diplomacy to end the tension, but stressed North Korea must take "meaningful" steps on denuclearization.

The United States and its allies believe the North violated the a 2005 aid-for-denuclearization deal by conducting a nuclear test in 2006 and pursuing a uranium enrichment program that would give it a second path to a nuclear weapon in addition to its plutonium-based program.

Slideshow: Glimpses into the hermit kingdom of North Korea

David Guttenfelder / AP

As chief Asia photographer for the Associated Press, David Guttenfelder has had unprecedented access to communist North Korea. Here's a rare look at daily life in the secretive country.

Launch slideshow

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News Analysis

BEIJING -- There was confusion at the China-North Korea border Thursday after Chinese tour operators halted trips into the North.

Wang Zhao / AFP - Getty Images

Two men wait Thursday for dispatch at a customs port in the Chinese border city of Dandong. The largest border crossing between North Korea and China has been closed to tourist groups, a Chinese official said Wednesday.

It wasn't clear whether the instruction to do so came from the Chinese authorities, the North Koreans, or was made by the nervous operators themselves.

But it mirrored a wider confusion over Chinese policy toward Pyongyang, which depends on Beijing for food and fuel, as well as diplomatic support.

As North Korea readies what is thought to be a missile test, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei has spent most of the week deflecting questions with the official line that "all sides" should show restraint and begin dialogue, and that peace and stability are a "shared responsibility."

But in an interview with NBC News he was more forthright about China's growing concern. "We do not want to see chaos and conflict on China's doorstep," he said.

In fact, there are signs that China is rethinking its policy toward the North. President Xi Jinping last weekend told a forum of political and business leaders that no country "should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain." He didn't mention the North by name, but it was pretty clear who he was referring to.

Earlier, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi had told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that Beijing would not allow "troublemaking on China's doorstep," a line repeated in an editorial in Thursday's China Daily.

China also supported the latest UN sanctions that followed North Korea's third nuclear test.

In fact, relations between the two have been souring for some time as Pyongyang has consistently ignored calls by Beijing for restraint.

"To many in Beijing, North Korea is looking less like a strategic asset and more like a strategic burden," said Cheng Xiaohe, associate professor at Renmin University's School of International Studies.

In the past, even when clearly unhappy, Beijing has treated the North with kid gloves because of fear of the North collapsing, and also as a hedge against U.S. power in Asia.

'Little Fatty'
According to leaked 2010 diplomat cables obtained by Wikileaks and posted by newspapers the Guardian and the New York Times, Chinese officials described the regime in the North as behaving like a "spoiled child."

Slideshow: North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un

The youngest son of Kim Jong Il succeeded his late father in 2011, becoming the third member of his family to rule the unpredictable and reclusive communist state.

Launch slideshow

Chinese social media, which is as close a barometer of public opinion as you can get here, has in recent days been buzzing with criticism -- not of the U.S., but of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, for leading his country to disaster and the world close to war.

Kim is derided as "Little Fatty" or "Fatty the Third."

One former top U.S. diplomat agrees there are clear signs that China is losing patience with North Korea. Kurt Campbell, the state department's top official for east asia, said there are signs that a relationship once described by Chairman Mao to be "as close as lips and teeth" is wearing thin.

He said this was notable in public statements and private conversations with U.S. officials. Speaking last week at a forum at Johns Hopkins University, he said this had the potential for a large impact on northeast Asia.

What's harder to say is how this growing frustration will be translated into concrete actions to pressure the North.

Cheng of Renmin University noted that in 2003 Beijing turned off the oil supply in order to force Pyongyang to join six-party talks and could use that weapon again.

"If China has political will, China can do something," he said. "China can make a difference."

Secretary of State John Kerry will be taking this up with China's leaders when he is there this weekend.

"China and the U.S. share common interests in peace, stability and denuclearisation," said the Foreign Ministry's Hong Lei. "We hope to work with the U.S. side towards that end."

Significantly, there has so far been no Chinese criticism of the display of U.S. high-tech firepower in the region, which is seen as another tacit condemnation of Pyongyang's antics.

That said, Kerry will no doubt point out, as other officials have done privately, that if China fails to act the result will be an even bigger U.S. military presence in the region and a possible regional arms race -- precisely what China has said it wants to avoid.

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Full North Korea coverage from NBC News

Slideshow: Glimpses into the hermit kingdom of North Korea

David Guttenfelder / AP

As chief Asia photographer for the Associated Press, David Guttenfelder has had unprecedented access to communist North Korea. Here's a rare look at daily life in the secretive country.

Launch slideshow

Family, friends and State Department colleagues on Sunday were mourning the first death of an American diplomat on duty since Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed in the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11 last year.

Anne Smedinghoff, 25, was one of five Americans killed in a car bomb attack on Saturday in Zabul Province, Afghanistan, Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday. Three of the dead were U.S. service members and the fifth a civilian employee of the Defense Department, Kerry said.

Atia Abawi / NBC News

They had not been named as of Sunday morning.

Several Afghans and four other State Department employees were injured, one critically.

A sixth American civilian working with the U.S. government was killed in a separate attack in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, ISAF said in a statement.

"It's a grim reminder to all of us, though we didn't need any reminders, of how important and also how risky carrying the future is with people who want to resist," Kerry told State Department employees on Sunday during a visit in Istanbul, Turkey.

Smedinghoff, whose business card read "Assistant Information Officer," and the other Americans were traveling in a convoy to southern Afghanistan to deliver textbooks to children in Qalat, Kerry said. 

He'd met the Illinois-native several weeks ago when she worked as his control officer during his recent trip to Afghanistan. He described her as "vivacious, smart, capable."

"There are no words for anyone to describe the extraordinary harsh contradiction for a young 25-year-old woman, with all of her future ahead of her, believing in the possibilities of diplomacy to improve people's lives, making a difference, having an impact" to be killed, Kerry said.

He described Smedinghoff as "a selfless, idealistic woman who woke up yesterday morning and set out to bring textbooks to school children, to bring them knowledge."

Smedinghoff previously served in Venezuela.

In an email to the Washington Post, Smedinghoff's parents said their daughter "was always looking for opportunities to reach out and help to make a difference in the lives of those living in a country ravaged by war."

They added: "We are consoled knowing that she was doing what she loved, and that she was serving her country by helping to make a positive difference in the world."

Smedinghoff's parents, who live near Chicago, said in a statement published by the Chicago Sun-Times that she joined the Foreign Service after college.

"She particularly enjoyed the opportunity to work directly with the Afghan people and was always looking for opportunities to reach out and help to make a difference in the lives of those living in a country ravaged by war," her parents, Tom and Mary Beth Smedinghoff, said.

In comments posted on the newspaper's website, former friends and colleagues expressed grief and disbelief.

"I am a friend and colleague of Anne. We were in Spanish class and served in Venezuela together. Anne was a light in an otherwise dark world. She made a difference to everyone she met," one commenter identified as David C. Grier, said.

Smedinghoff recently helped NBC News coordinate a report on "Buzkashi Boys," the short film nominated for an Oscar starring an Afghan boy who was discovered on the streets of Kabul.

Local Afghan producer Khyber Shinwari described her as "a lovely lady, charming – smiling on her face."

"She was very open and so helpful. So kind," he said. "She was here to help Afghans."

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the Zabul attack in a text message Saturday. The assault came just three days after 54 people were killed in another Taliban attack on a courtroom in the western Farah province of Afghanistan.

The United Nations has said civilians are increasingly being targeted this year.

On his first day in office, Kerry said the safety of State Department employees was a top priority, in the wake of the attack that killed Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi. No one has been convicted as of yet.

NBC News' Jamieson Lesko, Kiko Itsaka and Catherine Chomiak, and The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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This story was originally published on Sun Apr 7, 2013 6:04 PM EDT

Thaer Ganaim / PPO via Getty Images

RAMALLAH, WEST BANK - APRIL 7: In this handout image provided by the Palestinian Press Office (PPO), Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (L) meets with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on April 7, 2013 in Ramallah, West Bank. Kerry's visit is in an attempt to restart mideast peace talks.

A dormant, decade-old Mideast peace plan has suddenly emerged as a possible key to breaking years of deadlock between Israel and the Palestinians.

A top Palestinian official said Sunday that the visiting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has expressed interest in reviving the so-called Arab Peace Initiative, a 2002 plan in which the Arab world offered comprehensive peace with Israel in exchange for a full pullout from all territories it captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Arab officials confirmed the Arab League was set to discuss the matter on Monday.

The initiative was revolutionary when it was introduced by Saudi Arabia's then crown prince, King Abdullah, and later endorsed by the 22-member Arab League at a summit in Beirut. However, the plan was overshadowed by fierce Israeli-Palestinian fighting at the time and greeted with skepticism by Israel. The Arab League re-endorsed the plan in 2007, and technically, the offer remains in effect.

Key obstacles remain. Israel has not softened its objections to the plan, and the Palestinians turned down a request from Kerry for changes in it.

In the 1967 war, Israel took control of the West Bank, east Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, Sinai and Golan Heights. Israeli returned the Sinai to Egypt in 1982 in the framework of a peace treaty and pulled out of Gaza unilaterally in 2005. Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, and peace talks with Syria over the territory have repeatedly failed.

Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been deadlocked since late 2008, in large part over the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians refuse to talk while Israel settles its population on the occupied territories where they want to establish their state. They have demanded that Israel accept the 1967 lines as the basis for a future Palestine. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects a return to the 1967 lines and calls for talks with no preconditions.

The 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation has also endorsed the 2002 Arab peace initiative.

The plan, if adopted, considers the Arab-Israeli conflict "ended," offers "normal relations" with Israel and calls for providing "security for all the states of the region."

Israel has rejected a return to the 1967 lines for both security and spiritual reasons. Israeli leaders have long argued that the 1967 frontiers are indefensible. In addition, a return to those boundaries would mean a withdrawal from east Jerusalem, home to the city's holiest Jewish, Muslim and Christian religious sites.

Israel has annexed east Jerusalem, and Netanyahu has vowed never to share control of the sensitive area. The Palestinians say there can be no peace without establishing their capital in east Jerusalem. These conflicting claims to east Jerusalem are perhaps the most emotional and explosive issue in the conflict.

Kerry on Sunday kicked off what is expected to be several months of shuttle diplomacy between Israel and the Palestinians with a stop in the West Bank for talks with President Mahmoud Abbas.

It was not immediately clear whether the Arab initiative came up in Sunday night's talks. A senior State Department official said the meeting "included a discussion on how to create a positive climate for negotiations," but that Kerry had asked all participants to keep the details confidential. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of Kerry's orders not to brief reporters.

Abbas spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, said Abbas urged Israel to release Palestinian prisoners it is holding, called on Israel to halt settlement construction and urged Israel to commit to a solution based on the 1967 lines. He did not say whether the Arab peace initiative was discussed but confirmed Abbas was leaving Monday for talks on the plan at an Arab League meeting in Qatar.

Mohammed Subeih, the Arab League's undersecretary for Palestinian affairs, confirmed a special committee on the peace initiative would hold "an urgent meeting" in Doha on Monday.

He said the prime minister of Qatar would chair the meeting, and foreign ministers of key countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Palestinians, would attend. The Arab League's chief Nabil El-Araby is also expected, he said.

Subeih said the committee would form a delegation, chaired by El-Araby and the Qatari prime minister, to travel to Washington in the coming weeks. In Washington, the delegation will try together with the American side draw a road map to "end Israeli occupation," he said.

Earlier Sunday, the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said Kerry has been floating the Arab initiative as a possible way out of the deadlock.

Officials say Kerry has proposed two small changes to make it more palatable to Israel, saying the 1967 lines could be modified through mutual agreement and pressing for stronger security guarantees. Security-obsessed Israel has grown increasingly jittery during the upheaval that has swept through the Middle East over the past two years.

Speaking to the Voice of Palestine radio station, Erekat said the plan could not be changed. "Kerry asked us to change few words in the Arab Peace Initiative but we refused," he said.

Israeli officials refused to comment on the matter. An Israeli official said the Israelis were planning to offer "a wide spectrum of ideas" to Kerry when they meet with him in the current days. The official declined to elaborate. He spoke on condition of anonymity because nothing has been formally presented yet.

In the past, Netanyahu has described the Arab peace initiative as a welcome sign of acceptance from the Arab world but refused to accept it in its current form. Netanyahu has said that presenting the plan as an ultimatum would undermine negotiations.

But after years of deadlock, and growing international isolation over continued Israeli settlement construction, Netanyahu could find himself in a difficult position if the offer is again extended. 

North Korea escalated its provocative rhetoric on Thursday, warning that its military is authorized to wage "cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear strikes to protect against the United States.

"The moment of explosion is approaching fast. No one can say a war will break out in Korea or not and whether it will break out today or tomorrow," read the statement of an unnamed military spokesman.

The statement, which was carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), informs the White House and the Pentagon that "the merciless operation of its revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified."

The warlike rhetoric is the latest escalation in a series of threats from Pyongyang, which claims the joint U.S. and South Korean military exercises taking place in the South are in preparation for an invasion.

"The U.S. high-handed hostile policy toward the DPRK aimed to encroach upon its sovereignty and the dignity of its supreme leadership and bring down its social system is being implemented through actual military actions without hesitation," the military statement read.

The United States says the exercises are routine military drills.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Wednesday that North Korea's provocations are "a real and clear danger and threat" to U.S. interests and Washington is taking them seriously.

"We are doing everything we can ... to defuse that situation on the peninsula," Hagel said after a speech at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C.

"I hope the North will ratchet this very dangerous rhetoric down," he said, adding that there is a pathway to peace but only if Pyongyang decides to be "a responsible member of the world community."

U.S. response

The U.S. has responded to the diplomatic crisis with more than words, dispatching two warships to the western Pacific to be on alert for missiles and conducting bomber and fighter flyovers.

Defense officials also said an advanced anti-ballistic missile system will be sent to the U.S. military base in Guam in response to North Korean threats targeting Guam and U.S. military facilities in the region.

The system -- which includes missiles, launchers, radar and communications -- is expected to arrive within two weeks.

A former UN official who visited North Korea last year reports that officials there said they could re-start the Yongbyon reactor in three months.

That is a lot shorter than many U.S. nuclear experts believe a re-start would take.

U.S. officials tell NBC News that no matter what the timeline is, they don't believe the operation would be a huge engineering challenge. A re-start would, however, be significant, as it would give North Korea the capability to make weapons-grade plutonium again. The reactor was shut down in 2007.

"North Korea's assertion that it intends to bring Yongbyon back on line can't be easily written off as an insurmountable hurdle," said one U.S. official.

Asked how long a re-start might take, U.S. intelligence officials declined to provide any details. 

Banning South Korean workers
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has shown no inclination to back off yet. The rogue nuclear state's latest move was banning South Korean workers from the jointly run Kaesong industrial zone.

Seoul said about 800 South Koreans who had stayed overnight at the complex were being allowed to return home, but that new workers were not being allowed across the border.

Kaesong, a major source of income for the impoverished, communist North, is home to 124 South Korean companies that employ 53,000 North Korean workers in a cross-border, heavily fortified joint enterprise. Permission is granted on a daily basis for South Korean workers to cross into the complex, situated in the North, the BBC reported.

"South Korea's government deeply regrets the entry ban and urges it be lifted immediately," South Korea official Kim Hyung-seok told reporters Wednesday.

China expressed "serious concern" to U.S. diplomats over the worsening crisis. A Chinese official met ambassadors from the United States and both Koreas, expressing hope that Pyongyang and Seoul could resolve their differences through talks, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said, according to Reuters and Voice of America reporter Steve Herman.

Russia also voiced concern about North Korea's military apparatus, saying human error or technical malfunction may cause the situation on the Korean Peninsula “to go out of control,” according to a report Wednesday on Russian news service Interfax.

The comments came after Secretary of State John Kerry denounced North Korea's increasingly threatening rhetoric as "unacceptable," and said the U.S. would defend its allies, South Korea and Japan, from any threat from the North.

During a joint news conference with South Korea's foreign minister at the State Department on Tuesday, Kerry said North Korea knows what it needs to do if it wants to resume dialogue with the rest of the world.

NBC News' Andrea Mitchell and Becky Bratu contributed to this report.

Slideshow: Glimpses into the hermit kingdom of North Korea

David Guttenfelder / AP

As chief Asia photographer for the Associated Press, David Guttenfelder has had unprecedented access to communist North Korea. Here's a rare look at daily life in the secretive country.

Launch slideshow

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US official warns North Korea is no 'paper tiger'

Full North Korea coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 3, 2013 5:03 AM EDT