Trump: War with Kim is not first choice
UNITED STATES: President Donald Trump told his Chinese counterpart yesterday that war with North Korea was not America’s ‘‘first choice’’, but added that the US would ‘‘see what happens’’ if Kim Jong-un continued to pursue missile and nuclear tests.
Speaking to President Xi Jinping of China by phone, Trump appeared to scale back his previous threat, made last month, that more provocation would be met with ‘‘fire and fury’’.
‘‘We had a very good phone call. It lasted for a long time,’’ Trump said. ‘‘President Xi would like to do something. We’ll see whether or not he can do it. But we will not be putting up with what’s happening in North Korea.
‘‘I believe that President Xi agrees with me 100 per cent. He doesn’t want to see what’s happening there, either. We had a very, very frank and very strong phone call.’’
The US hopes to persuade China to accept new sanctions against Kim’s regime. Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, is expected to present a draft resolution to the security council by next Monday. New sanctions are expected to curtail oil exports to North Korea and restrict the travel of its citizens. Getting an agreement will be hard.
Satellite images showed that last weekend’s nuclear test by North Korea and the subsequent estimated 6.3 magnitude earthquake, had caused extensive landslides by the test site.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin rejected an appeal by President Moon Jae-in of South Korea to impose an oil embargo on North Korea in response. He said they would push North Korea into a corner and harm civilians. He has previously described more sanctions as ‘‘senseless’’.
‘‘Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear programme is a crude violation of UN security council resolutions, undermines the nonproliferation regime and creates a threat to the security of northeast- ern Asia,’’ he said at a news conference with the South Korean leader after a meeting in Vladivostok.
He added: ‘‘At the same time it is clear that it is impossible to resolve the problem of the Korean peninsula only by sanctions and pressure. I am concerned cutting off oil supplies to North Korea may cause damage to people in hospitals or other ordinary citizens.’’
North Korea imports about 10,000 barrels of crude oil a day, almost all of it from China.
One unlikely diplomatic avenue yet to be explored was suggested by Dennis Rodman, the former basketball player. He spoke fondly yesterday of karaoke and ski trips with Kim as he urged Trump to sit down for talks with the North Korean leader.
They struck up an unlikely friendship based on a love of basketball and music. Kim idolised the five-time NBA champion from his days at a Swiss private school where his walls were covered with posters of basketball players.
‘‘For some reason we have a big issue with North Korea,’’ Rodman told ITV’s Good Morning Britain. ‘‘For me to go over there and see him as much as I have, I basically hang out with him all the time, we laugh, we sing karaoke, we do a lot of cool things together. We ride horses, we hang out, we go skiing, we hardly ever talk politics and that’s the good thing about that.’’
Rodman added: ‘‘To me I think if the president even tries to reach out for Kim I think it will be a great possibility.
‘‘Things can happen if Donald Trump, if they sit down, have some type of mutual conversation. They don’t have to be like a friendship conversation, just a mutual conversation: saying, ‘Hi I would love to engage in some words and politics and over the history of your country and my country and just try to start some dialogue’. I think that’ll open up maybe the door just a little bit.’’
Rodman said he connected with Kim from the start. He said: ‘‘It was the fact that he loves basketball and I think that’s the key for anything in the world - basketball and music. I think that’s a great connection for anyone in the world, it so happens it has to be me. He obviously likes the Chicago Bulls, he asked me to come over and I said yes.
‘‘It’s just funny the fact that me saying something like that and people saying, ‘Oh my god Dennis Rodman protecting the marshal of North Korea’.
‘‘It’s not about that. My whole mission and my whole goal was to go over and bring sports, to bring connection to North Korea.’’
- The Times