N. Korea claims right to fire on U.S. warplanes

UNITED NATIONS — North Korea threatened Monday to shoot down U.S. warplanes even if they are not in the country’s airspace, as its foreign minister declared that President Donald Trump’s comments about the country and its leadership were “a declaration of war.”

Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told reporters that the United Nations and the international community have said in recent days that they didn’t want “the war of words” to turn into “real action.”

But he said that by tweeting that North Korea’s leadership “won’t be around much longer,” Trump “declared the war on our country.”

Under the U.N. Charter, Ri said, North Korea has the right to self-defense and “every right” to take countermeasures, “including the right to shoot down the United States’ strategic bombers even when they’re not yet inside the airspace border of our country.”

Within hours, the Trump administration pushed back on Ri’s assertions, with White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying, “We have not declared war on North Korea.”

The last time North Korea shot down a U.S. warplane was in 1969, during the Richard Nixon administration, killing all 31 crew members of a spy plane that was flying off its coast.

Today, North Korea’s ability to make good on its threat is limited. Its air force is outdated, undertrained and frequently short of fuel. But the threat signaled another major escalation in a rhetorical exchange that many fear could push Pyongyang and Washington into a conflict, even an unintended one.

“Fiery talk can lead to fatal misunderstandings,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Ri’s reference to the declaration of war appeared to refer to a Twitter message by Trump.

Trump tweeted Saturday: “Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!” Trump also used the “Rocket Man” reference to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 19.

Ri said the question of “who would be around much longer will be answered” by North Korea.

It is possible that North Korea’s foreign minister wanted to make clear that his country, too, could threaten pre-emptive military action, just as the United States has repeatedly done in recent months.

But Trump’s tweet over the weekend appeared to go further, suggesting that mere threats, rather than a military attack, could drive him to action.

“If the goal is to intimidate the North Koreans, it needs to be understood that they are really hard to intimidate,” said Evans J.R. Revere, a Korea expert who is a former deputy assistant secretary of state.

“They’re not used to an American president saying these things,” Revere said. “They’re also masters at responding when their leader is attacked.”

The escalation of threats came two days after U.S. warplanes flew close to the North’s coast, going farther north of the Demilitarized Zone — the dividing line between North and South — than any other U.S. air mission in the 21st century.

The Air Force advertised the exercise, which involved only U.S. aircraft, as a direct response to North Korea’s accelerated missile launches and a nuclear test two weeks ago.

Also last week, Ri said the North was considering conducting an atmospheric nuclear test, which would be the first by any nation in 37 years.

It is unclear whether the North is capable of pulling off such a test, which is far more complicated and dangerous than the underground testing it has done six times in the past 11 years. But a senior Trump administration official said over the weekend that the Pentagon and intelligence agencies were taking the threat seriously and beginning to devise possible responses — including pre-emptive military strikes — for the White

House.

A Pentagon spokesman, Army Col. Rob Manning, said Monday that the warplanes’ operation was conducted in international airspace and was legally permissible.

The U.S. has a “deep arsenal of military options to provide the president so that he can then decide how he wants to deal with North Korea,” Manning told reporters.

“We are prepared to defend ourselves and our allies from an attack and are prepared to use the full range of capabilities at our disposal against the threat from North Korea.”

Experts say an air engagement would not go well for North Korea.

“If there is a war, South Korean and U.S. military pilots will soon become aces as they shoot down North Korean aircraft,” said David Maxwell, a retired Army Special Forces colonel who served in Korea and now is associate director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. “The North Korean air force is no match for them.”

This was not the first time North Korea has spoken about a declaration of war between the two countries.

In July 2016, Pyongyang said U.S. sanctions imposed on Kim were “a declaration of war” against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — the country’s official name — and it made a similar statement after a new round of U.N. sanctions in December. The North Korean leader used the words again Friday.

The foreign minister’s brief statement to a throng of reporters outside his hotel before heading off in a motorcade, reportedly to return home, built on the escalating rhetoric between Kim and Trump.

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” Trump told world leaders Sept. 19. “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.”

Kim responded with the first-ever direct statement from a North Korean leader against a U.S. president, lobbing a string of insults at Trump.

“I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire,” he said, choosing the rarely used word “dotard,” which means an old person who is weak-minded.

“Now that Trump has denied the existence of and insulted me and my country in front of the eyes of the world and made the most ferocious declaration of a war in history that he would destroy the DPRK, we will consider with seriousness exercising of a corresponding, highest level of hardline countermeasure in history,” Kim said.

South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha called for careful management of the tensions to prevent a conflict that would devastate the region.

“It’s very likely that North Korea will conduct further provocations,” Kang said. “Under these circumstances, it is imperative that we — Korea and the United States — manage the situation with astuteness and steadfastness in order to prevent further escalation of tensions or any kind of accidental military clashes in the region which can quickly spiral out of control.”

“There cannot be another war in the region,” Kang said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“The consequences would be devastating not just for the Korean Peninsula but for Northeast Asia and indeed the whole international community.”

Kang said North Korea’s nuclear program seems to be at a “tipping point,” approaching the goal of having a nuclear-armed missile that could reach the continental United States.

She voiced South Korean support for the U.S.-led strategy of “maximum pressure” on North Korea as a tool to get Pyongyang to negotiate on denuclearization of the Korean peninsula — instead of toppling the North Korean government.

“There is still room for diplomacy,” Kang said, but “time is running out.”

The increasing acrimony also alarmed China, North Korea’s biggest trading partner, which strongly opposes the North’s missile and nuclear tests but has repeatedly urged de-escalation.

“We want things to calm down,” China’s U.N. ambassador, Liu Jieyi, was quoted by Reuters as saying Monday. “It’s getting too dangerous, and it’s in nobody’s interest.”