Kim holds off Guam missile strike threat
NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong-Un said yesterday he would hold off on a planned missile strike near Guam, but warned that the highly provocative move would go ahead in the event of further “reckless actions” by Washington.
Some analysts suggested Kim’s comments opened a possible path to de-escalating a growing crisis fuelled by bellicose words between US President Donald Trump and the North Korean leadership.
Their recent exchanges were focused on a North Korean threat to fire a volley of four missiles over Japan towards the US territory of Guam, which hosts a number of strategic military bases. The North’s official KCNA news agency said Kim was briefed on the “plan for an enveloping fire at Guam” during an inspection on Monday of the Strategic Force command in charge of the nucleararmed state’s missile units.
But Kim said he would “watch a little more the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees” before executing any order.
If they “persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean peninsula” then North Korea would take action “as already declared”, he said.
“To defuse the tensions and prevent the dangerous military conflict on the Korean peninsula, it is necessary for the US to make a proper option first,” he added.
Kim’s remarks may bring into play the large-scale military exercises held every year by South Korea and the US that kick off this month. The North denounces the drills as provocative rehearsals for invasion and has in the past offered a moratorium on further nuclear and missile testing in exchange for their cancellation –a trade-off promoted by Pyongyang’s main ally China, but repeatedly rejected by both Washington and Seoul. Some analysts said Kim wanted a similar quid pro quo this time around, using the Guam missile threat as leverage.
“This is a direct invitation to talk reciprocal constraints on exercises and missile launches,” said Adam Mount, senior fellow at the Centre for American Progress.
John Delury of Yonsei University in Seoul said “both sides need to keep taking steps to de-escalate in word and deed. Diplomacy needs to go in high gear.”
The US and South Korea insist their annual exercises are purely defensive, and cannot be linked to the North’s missile programme, which violates a host of UN resolutions.
Senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Joshua Pollack, said the Guam threat was “straight-up blackmail”.
Tensions have been mounting since the North tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles last month, which appeared to bring much of the US within range.
In response US President Trump warned Pyongyang of “fire and fury like the world has never seen”, while the North responded with the plan to fire missiles near Guam.
The standoff sparked global alarm, with world leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping urging calm on both sides.
South Korean President Moon Jae-In weighed in yesterday, saying Seoul would avoid a second Korean War at all costs.
“Military action on the Korean Peninsula can only be decided by the Republic of Korea and no one may decide to take military action without [its] consent,” Moon said.
But he added there could be no dialogue before the North halted missile provocations”.
US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson penned an opinion piece in the the Wall Street Journal yesterday insisting that America had “no interest” in regime change in Pyongyang.
“We do not seek an excuse to garrison US troops north of the Demilitarised Zone,” they wrote. “We have no desire to inflict harm on the long-suffering North Korean people, who are distinct from the hostile regime in Pyongyang.”
● Guam residents received a nasty jolt yesterday after two radio stations accidentally issued emergency warnings.
A number of frightened listeners called police after the stations triggered the Emergency Alert Broadcast System issuing “a civil danger” warning at 12.25am that was later confirmed to be a mistake.
The North Korean announcement prompted joy in Guam, where officials described themselves as “almost ecstatic that Kim Jong-Un has backed off”. — AFP its “nuclear and