Trump calls president of N Korea Rocket Man

UNITED STATES: President Donald Trump yesterday mocked the leader of nuclear-armed North Korea as ‘‘Rocket Man’' while White House advisers said the isolated nation would face destruction unless it shelves its weapons programmes and bellicose threats.

Trump’s chief diplomat held out hope the North would return to the bargaining table, though the president’s envoy to the United Nations said the Security Council had ‘‘pretty much exhausted’' all its options.

Kim Jong Un has pledged to continue the North’s programmes, saying his country is nearing its goal of ‘‘equilibrium’' in military force with the US.

North Korea will be high on the agenda for world leaders this week at the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly, Trump’s biggest moment on the world stage since his inauguration in January.

Trump is scheduled to address the world body, which he has criticised as weak and incompetent, tomorrow.

Trump, who spent the weekend at his New Jersey golf club, tweeted that he and South Korean President Moon Jae In discussed North Korea during their latest telephone conversation on Sunday.

Asked about Trump’s description of Kim, national security adviser H.R. McMaster said ‘‘Rocket Man’' was ‘‘a new one and I think maybe for the president’'. But, he said, ‘‘that’s where the rockets are coming from. Rockets, though, we ought to probably not laugh too much about because they do represent a great threat to all.’'

McMcaster said Kim is ‘‘going to have to give up his nuclear weapons because the president has said he’s not going to tolerate this regime threatening the United States and our citizens with a nuclear weapon’'.

Asked if that meant Trump would launch a military strike, McMaster said ‘‘he’s been very clear about that, that all options are on the table’'.

Some doubt that Kim would ever agree to surrender his arsenal.

‘‘I think that North Korea is not going to give up its programme with nothing on the table,’' said Democratic Senate Dianne Feinstein of California, a member of the Senate intelligence committee.

Kim has threatened Guam, a US territory in the Pacific, and has fired missiles over Japan, a US ally. North Korea also recently tested its most powerful bomb.

The UN Security Council has voted unanimously twice in recent weeks to tighten economic sanctions on North Korea, including targeting shipments of oil and other fuel used in missile testing. Trump’s UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, said North Korea was starting to ‘‘feel the pinch’'.

Trump, in a tweet, asserted that long lines for gas were forming in North Korea, and he said that was ‘‘too bad’'.