Trump has declared war says N Korea
It threatens to shoot down US jets – even if they’re not in its airspace
NORTH Korea claimed yesterday that donald Trump had declared war on the country.
This meant it had the right to shoot down US military planes even if they are not in its airspace, said the regime’s foreign minister ri yong-ho.
He added the US President’s warning on Twitter at the weekend that he and his leader, Kim Jong-un, ‘won’t be around much longer’ was a direct challenge to North Korea’s leadership.
Speaking two days after US warplanes flew close to North Korea’s coast in a show of strength, he said: ‘The whole world should remember it was the US who first declared war on our country.’
He told journalists outside the UN headquarters in New york that the question of ‘who would be around much longer will be answered’ by North Korea. He insisted his country now had ‘every right to make countermeasures’, including shooting down bombers outside its airspace, because the US had made the first move towards war.
‘All options will be on the operations table of the supreme leadership,’ he said.
White House spokesman Sarah Sanders said last night: ‘We’ve not declared war on North Korea. Frankly, the suggestion of that is absurd.’
The Pyongyang regime has previously claimed Washington declared war through an earlier threat by Mr Trump to ‘totally destroy’ North Korea if the US was forced to defend itself or its allies.
The Pentagon said Saturday’s air operation in international airspace close to the North Korean coast was the farthest north any US military plane had flown off the isolated country this century.
it described it as a response to North Korea’s ‘ reckless behaviour’.
Analysts have complained that the Trump administration has been escalating the risk of a military confrontation by trading threats with the North Koreans.
Many believe a conflict that could rapidly become a nuclear one would most likely start by accident. ‘ i think they’re dangerously close to some kind of a conflict with North Korea,’ said Jae Ku, a Korea expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced international Studies in Washington. ‘This is something i feared. When we go down this road, our escalation could lead to accidental shootouts, and it may not be so accidental.’
China’s UN ambassador Liu Jieyi said the escalating rhetoric between North Korea and the US was getting ‘ too dangerous’.
‘We want things to calm down… it’s in nobody’s interest,’ he added.
‘We hope [the US and North Korea] will see that there is no other way than negotiations to solve the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula. The alternative is a disaster.’
The state-controlled North Korean media has warned that US sanctions against the country will result in America being ‘ catapulted into an unimaginable sea of fire’.
in March, North Korea released a propaganda video depicting a nuclear strike on Washington, warning: ‘if the American imperialists provoke us a bit, we will not hesitate to slap them with a preemptive nuclear strike.’
Last month, Mr Trump warned that any threat by North Korea would be ‘met with fire and fury like the world has never seen’.
‘The suggestion is absurd’