North Korea tells Donald Trump: We will never stop nuclear tests if you don't back off
North Korea has said it won’t stop nuclear tests while the US continues with what it perceives as acts of aggression.
In a retaliation to a White House statement outlining how the US will apply economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme, a Pyongyang official said the country would not be influenced by outside events.
“As long as America continues its hostile acts of aggression, we will never stop nuclear and missile tests,” Sok Chol Won, director of the North’s Institute of Human Rights at the Academy of Social Sciences, told CNN.
“The nuclear test is an important part of our continued efforts to strengthen our nuclear forces.”
The US stance, which appeared to signal a willingness to exhaust non-military options, was put forward in a statement following an unusual White House-hosted briefing for the entire Senate.
It described North Korea as “an urgent national security threat and top foreign policy priority.”
North Korea showed off its military might with a display of missiles at a parade (Rex)
“The United States seeks stability and the peaceful denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. We remain open to negotiations towards that goal,” it said in a joint statement by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats
Although the statement emphasised diplomacy, Democratic Senator Christopher Coons told reporters after the White House briefing that military options were in advanced discussions.
“It was a sobering briefing in which it was clear just how much thought and planning was going into preparing military options, if called for, and a diplomatic strategy that strikes me as clear-eyed and well proportioned,” Coons said.
The unprecedented meeting in a building adjacent to the White House reflected the increased American alarm over North Korea’s progress in developing a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike the US mainland. A flurry of military activity, by North Korea and the US and its partners on and around the divided Korean Peninsula, has added to the world’s sense of alert.
While tensions have increased since Mr Trump took office, they have escalated dramatically in recent weeks as American and other intelligence agencies suggested the North was readying for a possible nuclear test. Although such an explosion has not yet occurred, Mr Trump has sent high-powered US military vessels and an aircraft carrier to the region in a show of force, while the North conducted large-scale, live-fire artillery drills, witnessed by national leader Kim Jong Un, earlier this week.
On Wednesday, South Korea started installing key parts of a contentious US missile defence system that also has sparked Chinese and Russian concerns.
Any air strike on North Korea by the US would have ‘absolutely cataclysmic, disastrous consequences’ and cannot be ruled out, the former US ambassador to China has starkly warned.
Max Baucus, who served as the US ambassador to China under President Barack Obama, warned that it ‘should not be categorically discounted’ that President Trump could order an air strike on the secretive merit state.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, he said: ‘After all President Trump ordered that strike on Syria, and he’s a macho kind of guy, which makes all of us a bit nervous.
‘But I’m sure that the Pentagon and state department, all his advisers have explained to him that a missile strike initiated by the United States at this time would have absolutely cataclysmic, disastrous consequences and I think he’s wise enough not to want to have that on his watch.’
On Tuesday, North Korea conducted artillery drills on the same day that a US missile submarine arrived in South Korea.
It came as the Trump administration prepared a briefing for all 100 senators on the nuclear threat – delivered by Secretary of Defence James Mattis, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and General Joseph Dunford.
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Describing the briefing, Mr Baucus said: ‘During the roughly 40 years I served in Congress I never remember a meeting of 100 members going to the White House on a national security issue.
‘I can only surmise the president is trying to set the stage for action he may take later, that may be diplomatic action, it might be military. It’s extraordinary, I’m very surprised by this.’
But despite the stark warning, Mr Baucus also claimed that ‘strategic patience’ hadn’t proved effective and said the US had been ‘a bit too patient while Kim Jong-un builds up his nuke and his missiles and China hasn’t done very much.’
He added: ‘It is proper to ramp up the pressure.’
