‘Locked and loaded’ US engaged in secret North Korean talks
Diplomat meets with Pyongyang counterpart as Trump steps up warlike rhetoric in another tweet
THE United States has been secretly engaged in an attempt at back-channel diplomacy with North Korea for months, despite the increasingly bellicose public rhetoric between Washington and Pyongyang.
In the latest round of threats Donald Trump, the US president, said his military was “locked and loaded” – a phrase popularised in Sands of Iwo Jima, the 1949 John Wayne film – while Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, accused him of “driving the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war”.
Other nations, including Russia and China, called for calm.
In a tweet issued from his golf course in New Jersey, Mr Trump said: “Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong-un will find another path!”
He later said that Mr Kim “will regret it fast” if he continues his threats to US territories and allies.
“I hope that they are going to fully understand the gravity of what I said, and what I said is what I mean,” Mr Trump told reporters. “Those words are very easy to understand.”
The other path Mr Trump mentioned may have been a reference to a senior US diplomat who has been engaged in back-channel diplomacy.
There have been regular contacts between Joseph Yun, the US envoy for North Korea policy, and Pak Song-il, a senior North Korean diplomat, at Pyongyang’s UN mission.
It is known as the “New York channel” as the two men met in that city and could form the foundation for any future negotiations. Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state, hinted at the potential route for dialogue last week when he said: “We have other means of comkorean munication open to them, to certainly hear from them if they have a desire to want to talk.”
Mr Trump was asked last night if there had been progress through the diplomatic back channel.
He said: “Well, we don’t want to talk about progress, we don’t want to talk about back channels. We want to talk about a country that has misbehaved for many, many years. And we’ll either be very, very successful quickly, or we’re going to be very, very successful in a different way, quickly.”
Mr Trump was also asked what he meant by saying “military solutions are locked and loaded”. He said: “I think it’s pretty obvious. What I said is what I mean. Those words are very, very easy to understand.”
China said it would “prevent” a preemptive strike by the US on its neighbour. The state-run Global Times newspaper said: “China should make clear that if North Korea launches missiles that threaten US soil first, and the US retaliates, China will stay neutral.
“If the US and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North regime, and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so.”
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said Moscow was deeply worried and considered the risk of military conflict between the US and North Korea “very high”. He again suggested a plan under which North Korea would halt missile tests if the US and South Korea would stop military exercises.
He said: “Unfortunately, the rhetoric in Washington and Pyongyang is now starting to go over the top.
“We still hope and believe that common sense will prevail. When it comes close to fight, the one who is stronger and wiser should be the first to step back from the brink.”
The Pentagon later confirmed that a huge annual joint exercise by the US and South Korea would go ahead as planned in 10 days’ time.
Mr Trump has said he would not allow the hermit state to develop a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the US.
But Pyongyang’s nuclear programme has advanced rapidly, with two intercontinental ballistic missile tests last month and intelligence reports alleging it now has miniaturised its nuclear warheads, which extends the range of its missiles and potentially brings US targets into reach.
Earlier this week, Mr Trump promised “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if North Korea threatened the US. Pyongyang responded by saying it may fire four missiles to land off the coast of Guam, a US territory in the Pacific, within days. In a press conference yesterday, Mr Trump said: “If anything happens to Guam there’s going to be big, big trouble in North Korea.”
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‘If anything happens to Guam there’s going to be big, big trouble in North Korea’