PM to review Korea tactics
Oval Office call amid growing crisis
PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull and US President Donald Trump will today discuss measures to counter North Korea’s increasing nuclear aggression.
Confirmation of the Oval Office phone call came during a dramatic day of developments in the burgeoning nuclear crisis, as the Japanese Government started planning for mass evacuations of nearly 60,000 citizens in South Korea.
Mr Trump yesterday offered an injection of military might to South Korea and an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council was told North Korean leader Kim Jong- un was “begging for war”.
Australia would immediately be involved if the US was to declare war on North Korea.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at a decades-high level after Pyongyang claimed to have successfully tested a hydrogen bomb capable of travelling on an intercontinental ballistic missile at the weekend. Such a missile could theoretically reach Australia and mainland US.
It was the hermit kingdom’s sixth and most powerful nuclear test and drew widespread international condemnation.
But Kim appeared undeterred and South Korea has warned another missile test was being prepared, which would be the third in a month.
The US yesterday urged China and other countries to cut off the supply of oil and energy to North Korea.
“We have kicked the can down the road long enough. There is no more road left,” the US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said.
“Enough is enough. We have taken an incremental approach, and despite the best of intentions, it has not worked.”
Mr Turnbull welcomed the prospect of the international community imposing tougher sanctions, saying they would be the key to avoiding war.
“The need now is to enforce the toughest economic sanctions on North Korea,” he said.
“Now the Security Council has already imposed sanctions and what they are now considering is imposing even tougher ones.”
In a phone call to discuss the crisis yesterday, Mr Trump told South Korean President Moon Jae- in that the US would be prepared to offer “many billions” in weapons sales and also agreed the South could build more powerful non- nuclear missiles.