N Korea mocks Trump, hones Guam strike plans
‘WEEK AWAY FROM FINAL PLAN’ May fire ICBMs into waters near US territory
North Korea on Thursday dismissed US President Donald Trump’s threat of “fire and fury” as a “load of nonsense” and announced outlines of a plan to launch missile strikes near the US territory of Guam.
The plan, which will be ready for leader Kim Jong Un’s consideration by mid-August, will involve firing four Hwasong-12 mid-range ballistic missiles that will “fly 3,356.7 km … and hit the waters 30 to 40 km away from Guam, North Korea’s military said in a statement.
The statement, attributed to Gen Kim Rak Gyom — the head of the country’s strategic forces — was replete with the usual North Korean bluster and invectives. It also said dialogue was not possible with Trump, who was referred to as a “guy bereft of reason”, with the statement saying that “only absolute force can work on him”.
But this show of force may not go unanswered by the United States, which, experts have said will view them as a direct threat.
Trump did not respond to the latest statement, but White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, told reporters on Thursday that “nothing has changed in the president’s thinking”, adding that Trump has “made clear how he feels on that front”.
On Monday, Trump stunned his aides, allies and the world when he had warned North Korea that further threats from it will be “met with the fire and the fury like the world has never seen”. He had said that Kim Jong Un “has been very threatening beyond a normal state”, though he refrained from naming North Korea’s supreme leader.
Even as aides were blindsided by this sudden rhetoric, Trump tweeted the next day about America’s nuclear power being “far stronger and more powerful than ever before”.
On Wednesday, Huckabee Sanders said national security adviser John Kelly and his team were “well aware of the tone of the statement of the president prior to delivery”. But, “the words were his own”.