Hague: Trump ‘fire and fury’ threat won’t deter

FORMER FOREIGN secretary Lord Hague has cautioned that US president Donald Trump’s threats of “fire and fury” will not deter North Korean leader Kim Jong Un from continuing with his nuclear programme.

Writing in a national newspaper, Lord Hague said: “There are no sanctions that will deter him... necessary as they are to demonstrate international disapproval.

“Nor will threatening ‘fire and fury’ or saying ‘talking is not the answer’ as President Trump did, because Kim will calculate that the US will not start a war that could be so catastrophic all round, and the stronger he gets the less likely they will be to do so.”

He added: “It would be worth the White House asking China if they are doing everything possible, with their vast intelligencegathering power in the Asia Pacific region, to find any network helping North Korea to defy the rest of the planet.

“In the absence of that, or some other initiative from Beijing to stop the progress of Kim’s plans, the world will need to move from preventing his nuclear aspirations to containing them.”

Fellow former foreign secretary Lord David Owen said that the US should consider using devastating weapons nicknamed The Mother of All Bombs (MOAB) which have only previously been deployed against Islamic State militants.

“Perhaps initially using the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bombs on all nuclear sites will suffice, leaving nuclear bombs as a last resort only if South Korea is attacked,” Lord Owen wrote in the Daily Mirror. “These MOAB bombs (also known as Mother of All Bombs) were used for the first time ever in April against an Isis cave complex in Afghanistan.

“It is an horrendous choice the US is facing.”

Earlier Prime Minister Theresa May said North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes represent a threat to the whole of the international community.