N. Korean’s hesitance ‘wise,’ Trump tweets
He responds to easing of Guam threat
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a “very wise” decision by opting to hold off on a missile strike near Guam, a U.S. territory that is home to a military base.
“Kim Jong Un of North Korea made a very wise and well reasoned decision,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “The alternative would have been both catastrophic and unacceptable!”
North Korea’s military on Tuesday presented Kim with plans to launch missiles into waters near Guam and “wring the windpipes of the Yankees,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported. But the North Korean leader said he will watch the U.S.’ conduct “a little more” and praised his strategic force for drawing up “a close and careful plan,” the news agency reported.
Trump said last week that North Korea would be met with “fire and fury” if the country proceeded with its threats against the U.S. After the U.N. Security Council approved new sanctions against North Korea earlier this month, the North’s military said it was examining a plan for “enveloping fire at the areas around Guam.”
Today, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, in an effort to jump-start diplomacy, said he would consider sending a special envoy to North Korea for talks if the North would stop its missile and nuclear tests.
He also declared, as fears mount in South Korea that Trump’s threats to Pyongyang could lead to real fighting, that there would be no second war on the Korean Peninsula.
“The people worked together to rebuild the country from the Korean War, and we cannot lose everything again because of a war,” Moon said in a nationally televised news conference. “I can confidently say there will not be a war again on the Korean Peninsula.”
Both Koreas and the United States have signaled in recent days a willingness to avert a deepening crisis, with each suggesting a path toward negotiations.
Moon said he believes dialogue with North Korea can happen when North Korea stops missile and nuclear tests.
“A dialogue between South and North Korea must resume. But we don’t need to be impatient,” Moon said. “I think lots of effort and time could be necessary to overcome a decade of severed ties and to reopen a dialogue.”
He also said he thinks Trump’s words are intended to show a strong resolve for pressuring the North and don’t necessarily display the willingness for military strikes.
Washington and Seoul are closely communicating over the North Korean nuclear problem, he said, and share the view that strong sanctions and pressure are needed against Pyongyang to stop its provocations and force it into negotiations to give up its nukes.
CALLS FOR CALM
After Kim’s decision not to strike, at least for now, the focus has shifted toward finding a diplomatic solution.
At the U.N., Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for confidence-building measures to defuse tensions and for a return to negotiations.
“As tensions rise, so does the risk of misunderstanding, miscalculation or escalation,” Guterres said Wednesday. “There are many possible avenues for this dialogue, from various bilateral formations to the six-party talks.”
Talks involving North Korea, South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia ran from 2003 until 2009, when North Korea abandoned them.
China, for its part, urged the United States and North Korea to “hit the brakes” on threatening words and work toward a peaceful resolution of their recent standoff.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a Tuesday phone conversation with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, that the U.S. and North Korea should work together to contain tensions and permit no one to “stir up an incident on their doorstep,” according to a statement posted on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s website.
“The most important task at hand is for the U.S. and North Korea to ‘hit the brakes’ on their mutual needling of each other with words and actions, to lower the temperature of the tense situation and prevent the emergence” of a crisis, Wang was quoted as saying.
The ministry quoted Lavrov as saying tensions could rise again with the U.S. and South Korea set to begin large-scale military exercises Monday.
“A resolution of the North Korea nuclear issue by military force is completely unacceptable, and the peninsula’s nuclear issue must be peacefully resolved by political and diplomatic methods,” Lavrov was quoted as saying.
Separately, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday called on Chile, Brazil, Mexico and Peru to cut all economic and diplomatic relations with North Korea as the U.S. looks to broaden the coalition of countries pressuring Kim to curtail his nuclear program.
Pence made the statement after meeting in Santiago with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet as part of a six-day tour of South America, including stops in Argentina and Colombia.
“We strongly urge Chile today, and we urge Brazil, Mexico and Peru to break all diplomatic and commercial ties to North Korea,” Pence told reporters. “The era of strategic patience is over, with regard to North Korea. All options are on the table.”
In an interview published Wednesday, Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, said there’s no military solution to the threat posed by North Korea and its nuclear ambitions. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“There’s no military solution [to North Korea’s nuclear threats], forget it,” Bannon said in an interview with The American Prospect, a left-leaning publication. “Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that 10 million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.”
TOP GENERAL IN CHINA
In Beijing, meanwhile, the Pentagon’s top general and his Chinese counterpart signed an agreement aimed at improving communication in times of crisis, a step that brings China and the U.S. closer together as the two nations grapple with what to do about North Korea and its pursuit of a robust nuclear weapons program.
Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Fang Fenghui of the Chinese army signed the deal Tuesday at the Chinese military headquarters at the outset of a three-day visit by Dunford.
The agreement establishes what the Pentagon called the Joint Staff Dialogue Mechanism, in which a three-star officer on Dunford’s staff, Army Lt. Gen. Richard Clarke, will communicate regularly with a Chinese counterpart.
Though China supported the Security Council’s move to impose further sanctions on North Korea, Chinese President Xi Jinping in July described relations with the United States as strained, especially as Washington has pressed Beijing to do more to rein in its ally. But there have been some signs of improvement in recent days, including China’s decision to ban North Korean iron ore, iron, lead and coal as part of the new United Nations sanctions package against Pyongyang.
China is North Korea’s main economic partner and political backer, although relations between Beijing and Pyongyang have deteriorated in face of the North’s continuing defiance of China’s calls for restraint.
China and the United States appear to differ starkly on other issues, including a U.S. plan to deploy in South Korea a missile-defense system known as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, as well as China’s efforts to expand its territorial claims in the South China Sea.
China also warned the Trump administration last month not to start a trade war with Beijing and split up the coalition countering North Korea.
Dunford, speaking in China, acknowledged that there are a number of challenges.
“To be honest, we have many difficult issues where we will not necessarily have the same perspectives,” Dunford said, according to a Pentagon news account. “But from the meeting we had in Washington, D.C., and the meeting we just had, I know we share one thing: We share a commitment to work through these difficulties. With the guidance from our presidents and the areas of our cooperation, I know we will make progress over the next few days.”
“I think our collective challenge is to sincerely and with candor attack these issues that we have to address,” he said.