War of words at disarmament talks

The US has warned that North Korea may be only months away from being able to strike the US mainland with a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile, while Pyongyang believes Washington is considering a pre-emptive strike against it.

Addressing the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva days after the Trump administration said it would expand its nuclear capability, US disarmament ambassador Robert Wood also warned that arsenals in China and Russia were expanding.

His comments drew rebukes from the North Korean, Chinese and Russian delegations.

“Russia, China and North Korea are growing their stockpiles, increasing the prominence of nuclear weapons in their security strategies and in some cases pursuing the development of new nuclear capabilities to threaten other peaceful nations,” Wood said.

North Korea “may now be only months away from the capability to strike the US with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles”, he said.

North Korea is under tightening UN Security Council resolutions for its banned nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

North Korea accused the US of seeking to aggravate the situation on the divided Korean peninsula by “deploying large nuclear assets” nearby and laying the ground for a possible pre-emptive strike against it.

In view of the nature and scale of US military reinforcements, they were designed to make a pre-emptive strike, North Korean diplomat Ju Yong Chol told the talks.