N. Korea rules out negotiations
Honolulu, Nov. 4: U.S. President Donald Trump heads to Japan on the first stop of his five-nation tour of Asia on Saturday, looking to present a united front with the Japanese against North Korea as tensions run high over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests.
Mr Trump, who is on a 12-day trip, is to speak to US and Japanese forces at Yokota air base shortly after arriving in Japan on Sunday and looked to stress the importance of the alliance to regional security.
Ballistic missile tests by North Korea and its sixth and largest nuclear test, in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions, have exacerbated the most critical international challenge of Mr Trump’s presidency.
Aerial drills conducted over South Korea by two US strategic bombers have raised tensions in recent days.
In a display of golf diplomacy, Mr Trump is to play a round of golf with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The two leaders also played together in Florida earlier this year.
Mr Trump will also have a state call with the Imperial Family at Akasaka Palace during his visit. Mr Abe and Mr Trump will meet families of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea.
Joined by his wife Melania on part of the trip, Mr Trump’s tour of Asia is the longest by an American president since George H.W. Bush in 1992.
Besides Japan, he will visit South Korea, China, Vietnam Philippines.
Mr Trump extended the trip by a day on Friday when he agreed to participate in a summit of East Asian nations in Manila.
His trip got off to a colorful start in Hawaii. He was taken by boat out to the USS Arizona Memorial, where lies the World War Two ship that was sunk by the Japanese during the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. The Trumps tossed white flower petals into the waters at the memorial in honor of those who died at Pearl Harbor. Mr Trump’s trip is to be dominated by trade and how to muster more international pressure on North Korea to give up nuclear weapons. and the Seoul: North Korea ruled out talks and threatened to increase its nuclear arsenal in a fresh warning to Donald Trump’s administration today as the US President set off on a tour of Asia.
Mr Trump departed for his first presidential trip to Asia yesterday, with tensions over North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats looming large. He is due to arrive in South Korea Tuesday, after first visiting Japan.
The North’s state-run KCNA news agency said in a commentary that the US should be disabused of the “absurd idea” that Our self-defensive nuclear treasure sword will be sharpened evermore unless the US hostile policy toward the DPRK is abolished once and for all
KCNA, Pyongyang would succumb to international sanctions and give up its nuclear weapons, adding that it is in “the final stage for completing nuclear deterrence”.
“It had better stop daydreaming of denuclearisation talks with us”, said the commentary titled “Stop dreaming a daydream”.
“Our self-defensive nuclear treasure sword will be sharpened evermore unless the US hostile policy toward the DPRK is abolished once and for all”, it said, using an acronym for the official name of North Korea.
The White House said Mr Trump will deliver a speech at South Korea’s National Assembly.