North Korea ready for war if Trump wants it: foreign minister
PYONGYANG, Korea, Democratic People’s Republic Of — President Donald Trump’s tweets are adding fuel to a “vicious cycle” of tensions on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea’s vice foreign minister told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Friday. The official added that if the U.S. shows any sign of “reckless” military aggression, Pyongyang is ready to launch a pre-emptive strike of its own.
Vice Minister Han Song Ryol said Pyongyang has determined the Trump administration is “more vicious and more aggressive” than that of Barack Obama. He added that North Korea will keep building up its nuclear arsenal in “quality and quantity” and said Pyongyang is ready to go to war if that’s what Trump wants.
Tensions between Pyongyang and Washington go back to President Harry Truman and the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. But the heat has been rising rapidly since Trump took office in January.
This year’s joint war games between the U.S. and South Korean militaries are the biggest so far. The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier has been diverted back to the waters off Korea after heading for Australia, and U.S. satellite imagery suggests the North could conduct another underground nuclear test at any time. Pyongyang recently tested a ballistic missile and claims it is close to perfecting an intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear warhead that could attack the U.S. mainland.
Many experts believe that at its current pace of testing, North Korea could reach that potentially game-changing milestone within a few years — under Trump’s watch as president. Despite reports that Washington is considering military action if the North goes ahead with another nuclear test, Han did not rule out the possibility of a test in the near future.
“That is something that our headquarters decides,” he said during the 40minute interview in Pyongyang. “At a time and at a place where the headquarters deems necessary, it will take place.”
The North conducted two such tests last year alone. The first was of what it claims to have been a hydrogen bomb and the second was its most powerful ever. Expectations are high the North may put its newest missiles on display during a parade today.
The annual U.S.-South Korea military exercises have consistently infuriated the North, which views them as rehearsals for an invasion.
Washington and Seoul deny that, but reports that exercises have included “decapitation strikes” aimed at the North’s leadership have fanned Pyongyang’s anger.
Han said Trump’s tweets have also added fuel to the flames.
Trump posted a tweet Tuesday in which he said the North is “looking for trouble” and reiterated his call for more pressure from Beijing, North Korea’s economic lifeline, to clamp down on trade and strengthen its enforcement of U.N. sanctions to persuade Pyongyang to denuclearize.
Trump has threatened that if Beijing isn’t willing to do more to squeeze the North, the U.S. might take the matter into its own hands.
“Trump is always making provocations with his aggressive words,” Han said. “It’s not the DPRK but the U.S. and Trump that makes trouble.” North Korea’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. He added: “We will go to war if they choose.” A U.S. State Department official said later Friday the U.S. was aligning “all elements of national power” to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear and missile programs.
The official, who wasn’t authorized to be quoted by name and demanded anonymity, lamented Pyongyang’s “far too common and far too dangerous” provocations, and said Washington would work with international partners to cut the North’s government off “from the rest of the world.”
The U.S. seeks nothing more than a “stable and economically prosperous Korean peninsula,” not military conflict, the official said. But the U.S. will respond to North Korea’s threats accordingly and won’t engage Pyongyang until it “chooses a more peaceful way forward.”
Han said U.S. sanctions efforts are misguided and cited the opening ceremony of a sprawling new highrise residential area in Pyongyang on Thursday as evidence that sanctions have failed to ruin the country’s economy. Leader Kim Jong Un presided over the ceremony before about 100,000 residents and a large contingent of foreign journalists.
Han dismissed the suggestion Trump made last year during his presidential campaign that he was willing to meet Kim Jong Un, possibly over hamburgers.
“I think that was nothing more than lip service during the campaign to make himself more popular,” Han said. “Now we are comparing Trump’s policy toward the DPRK with the former administration’s and we have concluded that it’s becoming more vicious and more aggressive.”