Mary slams ‘terrible’ Trump speech
FORMER President Mary Robinson has slammed Donald Trump for saying that he could ‘obliterate the North Korean people’.
Ms Robinson, now the UN ambassador for human rights, criticised the ‘terrible comment’ the US president made during his address to the UN General Assembly last week, when he branded the country’s dictator ‘Rocket Man on a suicide mission’.
She told RTÉ Radio 1’s This Week that she has ‘never known a more fractious’ UN meeting, following Mr Trump’s speech, adding: ‘I’ve been coming to New York for the UN General Assembly since 1997, that’s 20 years. I came first in my first weeks as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and I’ve never known a more fractious and more tension full United Nations. First of all, that terrible comment in his speech by President Trump, that he, in effect, said that he could obliterate the North Korean people.
‘I mean there was a gasp of dismay when that happened. I heard one remark that he had sullied the United Nations, because it’s the home of peace, security and development for the world. And secondly he’s threatened to jettison the Iran nuclear deal, which the United States is only one partner in.’
During Mr Trump’s maiden speech at the UN General Assembly, he warned that if the US ‘is forced to defend ourselves or our allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea’.
Mr Kim retaliated by calling Mr Trump ‘a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire’, before warning on TV: ‘We will consider… a corresponding, highest level of hardline countermeasure in history.’ The US and Japan say they will shoot down any missile they consider a threat to Japanese territory.
North Korea has conducted at least 14 missile tests this year, including two launched over Japan. It also carried out its biggest underground nuclear test earlier this month, a weapon 16 times more powerful than the US bomb that fell on Hiroshima.
In February, Ms Robinson described Mr Trump as a ‘bit of a bully’, after he imposed a travel ban on seven Muslim countries.
She added that he had ‘a giant ego’ and that ‘you have to stand up to bullies’.