Kim: An eye for an ICBM
N. Korea revenge threat vs. US
A defiant North Korea on Monday vowed to continue building a nuclear arsenal and threatened to unleash “thousands-fold” revenge against the US in retaliation for severe UN sanctions over its intercontinental ballistic missile launches.
“There is no bigger mistake than the United States believing that its land is safe across the ocean,” President Kim Jong-un’s government said, according to state-run media.
Kim’s regime said the sanctions were a “violent infringement of its sovereignty” instigated by a “heinous US plot to isolate and stifle” the country.
North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho re-emphasized that sentiment on Monday by ruling out any possibility the country would derail its weapons programs and saying negotiations would not be possible until the US ends its “hostile policy” against Pyongyang.
“We will, under no circumstances, put the nukes and ballistic rockets on the negotiating table,” Ri said at the Southeast Asia Regional Forum in the Philippines, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.
“Neither shall we flinch an inch from the road to bolstering up the nuclear forces chosen by ourselves unless the hostile policy and nuclear threat of the US against the DPRK are fundamentally eliminated,” he added, using the initials for North Korea’s official name.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who attended the forum in Manila but was at another meeting during Ri’s speech, left open the possibility of negotiating with the rogue regime.ime.
“The best signal that North Korea could give us that they’re prepared to talk would be to stop these missile launches,” Tillerson said.
But he saidd the US’s patience is limited.
“This is notot a ‘Give me 30 days and we are ready to talk.’ It’s notot quite that sim-mple. So it is allall about how we see their attitude toward approaching a dialogue with us,” he said.
The UN Security Council on Saturday unanimously ap-approved severe economic sanctions on North Korea that ban exports of coal, lead, iron and seafood products — penalties that could cost the regime about $1 billion a year.
Russia and China, two permanent members of the UN Security Council, have been promoting a diplomatic solution.
North Korea launched two ICBMs in July with enough range to strike the mainland United States. It has been trying to develop the capability to fit a nuclear warhead on a rocket that could hit the US.
'There is no mistake than the United States believing that its land is safe across the ocean.' -North Korea