PM warns travellers on Korea fears

MALCOLM Turnbull has urged about 200,000 Australians in China, Japan and South Korea to register on the Department of Foreign Affairs’s Smart Traveller website amid mounting tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

It would allow the government to alert Australians immediately to any changes to the situation and know where Australians were if an evacuation was necessary.

“The risk of war is greater than it’s been since the end of the Korean war,” the Prime Minister told the Nine Network’s Today Show yesterday.

“The threatening conduct of Kim Jong-un is becoming more intense all the time. Having said that, I remain confident the global community will put more economic pressure on North Korea and that will bring the regime to its senses.”

Mr Turnbull said if dictator Kim Jong-un carried out his threat of attacking the US or one of its allies “there would be an overwhelming and massive military response” from America.

“It would be a suicide note on the part of Kim Jong-un but it would be a complete catastrophe,” he said.

“It is in many respects a more challenging situation than the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Mr Turnbull told the Seven Network.

“The Cuban Missile Crisis (involved) two parties that were the United States and the Soviet Union. What we have now in North Korea is a rogue regime that is not taking heed from anybody – it is not a client state of China.”