Trump cranks up N Korea threats after UN speech
US bombers fly near demilitarised zone to ‘send a message’
SEOUL/UNITED NATIONS : US President Donald Trump dialled up the rhetoric against North Korea again at the weekend, warning the country’s foreign minister that he and leader Kim Jong Un “won’t be around much longer”, as Pyongyang staged a major anti-us rally.
North Korea’s foreign minister Ri Yong Ho told the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday that targeting the US mainland with its rockets was inevitable after “Mr Evil President” Trump called Pyongyang’s leader a “rocket man” on a suicide mission.
“Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!” Trump tweeted late on Saturday.
Trump and Kim have traded increasingly threatening and personal insults as Pyongyang races towards its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the United States — something Trump has vowed to prevent.
Analysts say the escalation in rhetoric is increasing the risk of a miscalculation by one side or the other that could have massive repercussions.
North Korea’s state-run television KRT aired a video on Sunday showing tens of thousands of people attending an anti-us rally at Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang.
The North’s official KCNA news agency said more than 100,000 people gathered for the rally on Saturday and delivered speeches supporting comments made by Kim earlier in the week.
“We are waiting for the right time to have a final battle with the US, the evil empire, and to remove the US from the world,” KCNA quoted Ri Il-bae, a commanding officer of the Red Guards, as saying.
Also on Saturday, US Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers escorted by fighters flew in international airspace over waters east of North Korea in a show of force the Pentagon said indicated the range of military options available to Trump.
The US bombers’ flight was the farthest north of the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea that any US fighter jet or bomber had flown in the 21st century, the Pentagon said.
The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce and not a peace treaty.
The North accuses the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, of planning to invade and regularly threatens to destroy it and its Asian allies.