**Second Taiwanese man probed over secret North Korea oil sales

North's figure skating pair arrives in South

A US special envoy said yesterday all options remain on the table for solving the nuclear standoff with North Korea but that he did not think the military option was close.

Joseph Yun, speaking to reporters in the Japanese capital, said the United States was seeking a peaceful resolution of the crisis and diplomacy was its preferred option.

"Our policy is very much for the peaceful resolution of the North Korean nuclear crisis. We've said over and over again that what we want to see is dialogue," Yun said.

"Having said that, we also have said that all options are on the table and by all options, it has to include military options," he said. "I don't believe we are close to it. ”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has refused to give up development of nuclear missiles capable of hitting the United States in spite of increasingly severe UN sanctions, raising fears of a new war on the Korean peninsula. The North has fired test-fired missiles over Japan, reported Reuters.

Yun was speaking a day after US President Donald Trump, branding North Korea's leadership "depraved”, said that Pyongyang’s pursuit of nuclear missiles could "very soon threaten” the American homeland and vowed to prevent that. Yun welcomed the North-South dialogue and said he hoped it was a trend of things to come, but he said any talks with Washington would have to “be about steps North Korea would take toward denuclearisation".

Ten North Korean skiers and skaters arrived in the South yesterday to take part in the Pyeongchang Winter Games, setting the stage for a ” peace Olympics".

Eight days before the opening ceremony, the athletes were among a delegation that landed in Gangneung, on South Korea's east coast, after a rare direct flight between the two halves of the divided peninsula - for which a special exemption had to be sought from US sanctions.

Meanwhile, a second Taiwanese businessman has been questioned over his alleged involvement in selling oil to North Korea, prosecutors said yesterday, as their probe into the illicit sanc-tions-busting trade widens, reported AFP.

The UN Security Council imposed three sets of sanctions on North Korea last year in response to the reclusive state's nuclear and missile tests, including restrictions on oil sales.

But the US has said companies with ties across Asia were violating those sanctions, including by transferring oil to North Korean vessels at sea to avoid detection.