Kim out to launch
N. Korea in ‘preemptive’ nuke threat
A top North Korean official on Monday threatened a “nuclear preemptive strike” if the United States plans military action against the hermit kingdom — the same day President Trump warned the rogue nation it’s “gotta behave.”
“If the US is planning a military attack against us, we will react with a nuclear preemptive strike by our own style and method,” Vice Foreign Minister Han Songryol told the BBC in Pyongyang.
He also thumbed his nose at US demands that his country stop testing long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“We’ll be conducting more missile tests on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis,” Han said, adding that an “all-out war” would result if the US were “reckless enough to use military means.”
Trump later said that former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were “outplayed” by North Korea — and that he won’t be spilling the beans about his own plan of action ahead of time.
“I don’t want to telegraph what I’m doing or what I’m thinking. I’m not like other administrations, where they say we’re going to do this in four weeks,” Trump told Fox News.
“We’ll see what happens. I hope there’s going to be peace, but they’ve [previous US presidents] been talking with this gentleman for a long time,” he said.
During a trip to Tokyo on Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence said the US was with Japan “100 percent” amid the “increasing provocations from across the Sea of Japan.”
Pence reassured Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that the US considers its alliance to be a cornerstone of security in the region.
Abe said Japan hoped for peaceful dialogue with Pyongyang, but added “at the same time, dialogue for the sake of dialogue is valueless.”
“It is necessary for us to exercise pressure on North Korea so that it comes forward and engages in this serious dialogue,” Abe said.
In a visit to the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea on Monday, Pence said America’s “era of strategic patience” with North Korea was over.
Pence called the US commitment to South Korea "iron-clad and immutable," and warned the Communist dictatorship not to underestimate Trump.
“North Korea would do well not to test his resolve,” Pence said.
On Saturday, North Korea held a military parade, showing off its new ICBMs, and that evening launched a test missile that fizzled.
Trump spokesman Sean Spicer refused to set a “red line” that North Korea had better not cross.
“Drawing red lines hasn’t really worked in the past,” Spicer said in a dig at Obama, who said the US would act against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad if he used chemical weapons. Assad then gassed a Damascus suburb, killing hundreds, and Obama did nothing.