US shops around to stop nuke threat
AS A US strike group led by an aircraft carrier steamed towards the Korean peninsula on Sunday, a senior official said President Donald Trump has asked to be provided with a range of options for eliminating the North Korean nuclear threat.
The US naval move will certainly raise tensions in the region and comes hard on the heels of a US cruise missile strike on Syria that was widely interpreted as putting Pyongyang on warning over its refusal to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
North Korea denounced Thursday’s attack as an act of “intolerable aggression” and one that justified “a million times over” the North’s push towards a credible nuclear deterrent.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson insisted in an interview broadcast on Sunday that the US does not intend to try to remove the regime of Kim Jong-Un.
“That is not our objective and so the whole reason underlying the development of a nuclear programme in North Korea are simply not credible,” Tillerson told the ABC programme This Week.
He said the US expects China, the main ally of North Korea, to do more to rein in the regime in Pyongyang.
“They have indicated that they will, and I think we need to allow them time to take action,” Tillerson said.
US National Security adviser H R McMaster insisted, however, that in the meantime it is “prudent” to send the strike group to the Korean peninsula, criticising North Korea as a rogue, nuclear-armed nation engaged in provocative behaviour.
“Presidents before, as well as President Trump agreed that that is unacceptable, that what must happen is the denuclearisation of the peninsula,” McMaster told Fox News.
“The president has asked them to be prepared to give us a full range of options to remove that threat,” he added, apparently referring to Trump’s advisers.
Pyongyang is on a quest to develop a longrange missile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead, and has so far staged five nuclear tests, two of them last year.
Expert satellite imagery analysis suggests the North could well be preparing for a sixth, with US intelligence officials warning that Pyongyang could be less than two years away from developing the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to the continental US.
North Korea on Wednesday fired a mediumrange ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan ahead of a US-China summit.
The isolated North is barred under UN resolutions from any use of ballistic missile technology. In February, North Korea simultaneously fired four ballistic missiles off its east coast, three of which fell provocatively close to Japan, in what it said was a drill for an attack on US bases in the neighbouring Asian country.
Last August, Pyongyang also successfully test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) 500km towards Japan.
Asked if the development of a long-range ballistic missile would mark a red line for Trump, Tillerson said: “If we judge that they have perfected that type of delivery system, then that becomes a very serious stage of their further development.”
The White House said Trump spoke Saturday with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about the US cruise missile attack on an airbase in Syria and agreed to cooperate more on regional issues including the North Korea nuclear threat.
On Thursday and Friday, Trump hosted his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for talks during which he pressed Pyongyang’s key ally to help curb the North’s nuclear weapons programme.
Trump has threatened unilateral action against the reclusive communist state, a threat that appeared more palpable after Thursday’s strike on a Syrian airfield following an apparent chemical attack. — AFP