Boris: Trump right to ready for N Korea war

BRITAIN’S foreign secretary Boris Johnson will today suggest that Donald Trump is right to prepare for war with North Korea.

Mr Johnson will praise US secretary of state Rex Tillerson for opening the door to dialogue with Kim Jong-un, even though Mr Trump has said that negotiating is a ‘waste of time’.

But Mr Johnson will also defend the US president for keeping military options on the table in order to keep America and its allies safe.

His intervention comes amid concern at what has been seen as inflammatory rhetoric from Mr Trump and Kim, whom the president called ‘Rocket Man’ after a series of North Korean missile tests.

Giving a speech at Chatham House in London, Mr Johnson will call for ‘toughness but engagement’ with Pyongyang to deescalate tensions. He will say: ‘It is right that Rex Tillerson has specifically opened the door to dialogue. He has tried to give some sensible reassurances to the regime, to enable them to take up this offer.

‘This is the moment for North Korea’s regime to change course. And if they do, the world can show it is once again capable of the diplomatic imagination that produced the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and that after 12 years of continuous effort produced the nuclear deal with Iran.’

But he will also stress the need to keep military options on the table, saying: ‘Kim and the world need to understand that when the president of the United States contemplates a regime led by a man who not only threatens to reduce New York to “ashes”, but who stands on the verge of acquiring the power to make good on his threat, I am afraid that the US president – whoever he or she might be – will have an absolute duty to prepare any option to keep safe not only the American people but all those who have sheltered under the American nuclear umbrella.’

He will also warn of the dire consequences of failing to reach a diplomatic solution to the nuclear threat. ‘The memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is now literally fading from living memory,’ he will say. ‘The Non-Proliferation Treaty is one of the great diplomatic achievements of the last century. It has stood the test of time [and] shows an unexpected wisdom on the part of humanity... It is the job of our generation to preserve that agreement.’