Military chiefs present missile launch plans to Kim Jong Un
● Tensions rise as North Korea homes in on nuclear weapon goal
North Korea’s military yesterday presented leader Kim Jong Un with plans to launch missiles into waters near Guam and “wring the windpipes of the Yankees” even as both Koreas and the United States signalled their willingness to move toward negotiations.
The tentative interest in diplomacy follows threats between US president Donald Trump and North Korea amid worries that Pyongyang is nearing its long-sought goal of being able to send a nuclear missile to the US mainland.
Next week’s start of Us-south Korean military exercises that enrage the North each year makes it unclear, however, if diplomacy will prevail.
During an inspection of the North Korean army’s strategic forces, which handle the miscould sile programme, Kim praised the military for drawing up a “close and careful plan” and said he would watch the “foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees” a little more before deciding whether to order the missile test.
The comments by North Korea’s leader were reported by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
Kim appeared in photos sitting at a table with a large map marked by a straight line between what appeared to be northeastern North Korea and Guam. The line can also be seen passing over Japan.
The missile plans were previously announced.
Kim said North Korea would conduct the launches if the “Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean peninsula and its vicinity” and that the United States should “think reasonably and judge properly” to avoid shaming itself.
Lobbing missiles toward Guam, a major US military hub in the Pacific, would be a deeply provocative act and a miscalculation on either side lead to a military clash. US defence secretary James Mattis said the United States would take out any missile seen to be heading for American soil and declared that such an attack could mean war.
However, Kim’s comments, with their conditional tone, seemed to hold out the possibility that friction could ease if the United States made a gesture that Pyongyang viewed as a move away from previous “extremely dangerous reckless actions”. That could refer to the Us-south Korean miliwar tary drills set to begin on Monday, which the North claims are rehearsals for invasion.
It also could refer to the B-1B bombers that the US has occasionally flown over the Korean peninsula as a show of force.
South Korean president Moon Jae-in, meanwhile, a liberal who favours engagement with the North, urged North Korea to stop provocations and to commit to talks over its nuclear weapons programme.
Moon, in a televised speech yesterday on the anniversary of the end of the Second World and the Korean peninsula’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, said that Seoul and Washington agreed that the crisis over the North’s nuclear programme should “absolutely be solved peacefully”, and that no US military action on the Korean peninsula could be taken without Seoul’s consent.
Moon said the North could create conditions for talks by stopping nuclear and missile tests.
“Our government will put everything on the line to prevent another war on the Korean Peninsula,” Moon said.
“Regardless of whatever twist and turns we could experience, the North Korean nuclear program should absolutely be solved peacefully, and the [South Korean]and US government sdon’t have a different position on this.”
The chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, on Monday met senior South Korean military and political officials and the local media.
He made comments that appeared to be an attempt to ease growing anxiety.