Defiant N Korea warned of ‘dire consequences’

NORTH Korea test-fired a ballistic missile yesterday, shortly after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that failure to curb its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes could have “catastrophic consequences”.

US and South Korean officials said the test, from an area north of the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, appeared to have failed, in what would be the country’s fourth successive unsuccessful missile test since March.

The test came as the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group arrived in waters near the Korean peninsula, where it will join the USS Michigan, a guided-missile submarine that docked in South Korea on Tuesday.

Tillerson, in a UN Security Council meeting on North Korea, repeated the Trump administration’s position that all options were on the table if Pyongyang persisted with its nuclear and missile development.

“The threat of a nuclear attack on Seoul, or Tokyo, is real and it’s only a matter of time before North Korea develops the capability to strike the US mainland,” Tillerson said.

“Failing to act now on the most pressing security issue in the world may bring catastrophic consequences,” he said.

US President Donald Trump, who said in an interview on Thursday that North Korea was his biggest global challenge, said the launch was an affront to China, the North’s sole ally.

“North Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!,” Trump said in a post on Twitter after the launch.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the UN meeting that it was not only up to China to solve the North Korean problem.

Both China and Russia rebuked the US for its threat of military force.

The North has been conducting missile and nuclear weapons-related activities at an unprecedented rate since the beginning of the year and is believed to have made some progress in developing intermediaterange and submarine-launched missiles.

The US has been hoping China can bring pressure to bear. But China says the US must not overestimate the influence it has over its neighbour.

Trump, in his interview on Thursday, said he had praised Chinese leader Xi Jinping for “trying very hard” on North Korea, but warned that a “major, major conflict” between the US and North Korea was possible.

Japan condemned the launch and authorities stopped some train services in Japan as a precaution in case the missile had been fired at Japan.

A Japanese military official said its navy completed an exercise with the Carl Vinson yesterday in the channel separating the Korean peninsula from Japan.

Kim Dong-yub, an expert at Kyungnam University’s Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, said North Korea might have got the data it wanted with the missile’s short flight, then blown it up in a bid to limit the anger of China.

North Korea rattled world powers in February when it successfully launched a new, intermediate-range ballistic missile that it said could carry a nuclear weapon. It also successfully tested ballistic missiles on March 6.

It is not clear what has caused the series of failed missile tests since then.

The South Korean politician expected to win a May 9 presidential election, Moon Jae-in, has advocated a more moderate policy on the North, and called the test an “exercise in futility”.

Moon has been critical of the deployment of an advanced US missile defence system in the South intended to counter North Korea’s missile threat, which China also strongly objects to. —

It’s only a matter of time before it develops the capability to strike the US mainland