TRUMP RULES OUT TALKS WITH N KOREA
PYONGYANG/WASHING
TON: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday ruled out any talks with North Korea, which fired a ballistic missile that flew over Japan, forcing people to seek shelter.
The missile flew over Hokkaido island before crashing into the northern Pacific Ocean. This is the first time North Korea has fired what is thought to be a ballistic weapon over Japan.
“The US has been talking to North Korea, and paying them extortion money, for 25 years. Talking is not the answer!” Trump tweeted.
A day earlier, he had warned a defiant North Korea that “all options are on the table”.
“But you said ‘all’ options were on the table. The negotiating table itself should be one of them. Don’t discount the power of dialogue,” tweeted former State Department spokesman John Kirby.
“I doubt Trump taking diplomacy with NK (North Korea) off table was coordinated with Asian allies or will go down well there. Stakes too high for improv(e),” tweeted Ben Rhodes, a top White House National Security Official during the Obama administration.
Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called the country’s latest missile test over Japan “a meaningful prelude to containing Guam” and said his country should conduct more missile tests into the Pacific Ocean, maintaining his country’s defiant posture even as the United Nations convened an emergency meeting on containing the Korean threat.
Japan is on high alert after North Korea fired a missile over the island of Hokkaido, which prompted an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
The missile hurtled toward Japan as the United States and South Korea were conducting joint military exercises that North Korea has consistently denounced as an act of aggression. Kim was present to observe the test of the missile that flew over Japan,
according to the Korean Cen
tral News Agency. The news service also said the projectile was a Hwasong-12 intermediate range missile, the same type North Korea had threatened Guam with. The Korean leader’s remarks, conveyed via the Korean Central News Agency, a government mouthpiece, suggest that North Korea has no intention of changing the behavior guiding a recent spate of missile tests that have rattled east Asian countries and prompted tough talk from the United States.
Donald Trump said North Korea had displayed “contempt for its neighbors” and that “all options are on the table” for a response. Members of the United Nations Security Council released a statement calling the firing “outrageous” and pushing North Korea to discontinue further launches. The statement did not call for additional sanctions on North Korea, which saw the UN impose more financial restrictions earlier this month.
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, who had said prior to the meeting that “something serious has to happen” without providing additional details, said afterward that North Korea must recognize the “danger they are putting themselves in”.
An increasingly assertive North Korea has already prodded a response from the international community. The UN security council voted unanimously in early August to impose new sanctions that sought to inflict economic pain by banning coal and other exports.
North Korea’s threat to Guam again thrust small Pacific island into a global struggle over North Korea’s military ambitions.
It was frequently invoked as the United States and North Korea traded belligerent rhetoric earlier this month, with Donald Trump’s threat of punishing North Korea with “fear and fire” prompting North Korea’s military to announce it was formulating plans to strike Guam. North Korea subsequently signaled it was shelving the threat, drawing praise from Trump. But a series of missile tests in recent days has again raised the temperature.
South Korea’s military said the missile was launched from near the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, just before 6 am (2100 GMT on Monday) and flew 2,700 km (1,680 miles), reaching an altitude of about 550 km (340 miles).
Four South Korean fighter jets bombed a military firing range on Tuesday after President Moon Jae-in asked the military to demonstrate capabilities to counter North Korea.