N Korea threatens US

‘ALL-OUT WAR’: IF TRUMP’S ADMINISTRATION TAKES ACTION AGAINST IT

Country defies international pressure with missile test on Sunday.

Tokyo

North Korea has threatened to launch missile tests “every week”, keeping up its drumbeat as American Vice President Mike Pence arrived in Japan with a renewed security commitment designed to soothe nerves over Pyongyang’s atomic weapons programme.

The North, which is intent on developing a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile capable of reaching the mainland US, defied international pressure on Sunday with a test that failed immediately after launch.

As fears grow that it may also be preparing for its sixth nuclear weapons test, Vice Foreign Minister Han Song-Ryol said that its programme would only escalate.

“We’ll be conducting more mis- sile tests on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis,” Han told the BBC in an interview, threatening “allout war” if the US took any action against it.

In South Korea on the first leg of an Asian tour, Pence visited the heavily fortified Demilitarised Zone separating the two Koreas on Monday and warned Pyongyang against further provocations, saying “all options are on the table”.

North Korea could react to a potential US strike by targeting South Korea or Japan, and officials in both countries have been ill at ease with the more bellicose language deployed by US President Donald Trump’s administration.

Pence pointed to Trump’s recent strikes on a Syrian airbase and an Islamic State complex in Afghanistan as a warning to Pyongyang not to underestimate the administration’s resolve.

Throughout his bareknuckle election campaign, Trump repeatedly suggested Tokyo should pay for its own security. But now, Pence will try to reassure his jittery hosts that decades-old security commitments are ironclad. –