Two women killed in rail station terror
wrote on Twitter, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
“Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!”
Mr Tillerson had revealed he had been “back-channelling North Korea” — or sending messages via nonconventional routes — to get them to the negotiating table and “calm things down”.
Speaking after a day of talks with China’s President Xi Jin- ping and top diplomats, he said US officials were in touch with Pyongyang despite an escalating war of words between Mr Trump and Mr Kim, and the imposition of US-led sanctions.
Asked how he could know whether the North would even contemplate coming to the table, Mr Tillerson said: “We are probing, so stay tuned.”
But the State Department later said North Korea had shown no interest in such discussions and Mr Trump wrote that he regarded any possible talks as futile.
The strong involvement of China in backing sanctions on North Korea seems to have changed the calculations for the nation, according to Australia’s foreign minister.
Julie Bishop said she had spoken to Mr Tillerson, adding the world would know the sanctions were working when North Korea agreed to come back to the negotiating table.
“He indicated to me that part of his efforts to bring China into the collective strategy, to impose economic sanctions on North Korea, he was also back channelling . . . North Korea to make it clear to them that the US was prepared to talk,” Ms Bishop said on the ABC on Sunday.
“The messages so far have been through the media — you TWO young women are dead — one with her throat cut — after they were attacked by a knife-wielding man in an apparent Islamist terror attack at a station in the southern French city of Marseilles.
A man yelling “Allahu Akbar’’ or “God is great’’ in Arabic attacked the pair at the Saint-Charles train station about 1.45pm French time, as it was packed with lunchtime commuters.
The attacker, a man aged about 30, was shot dead by soldiers patrolling the station as part of Operation Sentinelle, deployed under the state of emergency provisions that have been in place since the November 2015 terror attacks across Paris, including at the Bataclan Theatre, which killed 130 people.
France’s Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said the incident “might be a terrorist act, but at this point we can’t say so with certainty, so I prefer to wait and see”.
Islamic State later claimed responsibility for the attack.
The victims are believed to be two women aged just 20 and 17.
One was attacked from behind and had her throat cut. Another was stabbed in the chest and stomach.
Photographs posted on social media showed the bodies of one of the victims crumpled on the ground outside the ornate train station — the main know, Pyongyang news puts out a statement and the [US] President responds.”
She was encouraged by the role China had taken in backing two UN resolutions for sanctions.
“I believe that China’s involvement is a positive. They are playing a pretty active role and I think it’s just changed the calculation in the minds of the North Koreans as well,” Ms Bishop said. terminal in the Mediterranean port city.
Media reports were that the attacker was previously known to police, was of North African appearance and had been carrying a large butcher’s knife.
French president Emmanuel Macron tweeted his outrage, saying he was “profoundly struck by this barbarous act”.
“My thoughts are with the loved one of the victims of Marseilles,” he wrote.
“I salute the Operation Sentinelle soldiers and the police forces who reacted with ex- treme calmness ficiency.’’
Anti-terror prosecutors have launched an investigation into whether the attack amounted to “killings linked to a terrorist organisation”.
More than 200 police officers cordoned off the station, evacuating commuters and diverting hundreds of trains, bringing chaos to the main lines around Marseilles, the third largest city in France behind Paris and Lyon.
More than 230 people have been killed in France since the wave of Islamist killings began in November 2015 and ef-