Pyongyang rubbishes US ‘fire and fury’ talk

Tension mounts in nuclear missile standoff

NUCLEAR-ARMED North Korea announced a detailed plan yesterday to send a salvo of four missiles over Japan and towards the United States territory of Guam, raising the stakes in a stand-off with President Donald Trump and mocking him as “bereft of reason”.

The scheme to target the island, a key US military stronghold, was intended to “signal a crucial warning” as “only absolute force” would have an effect on the US leader, the North said.

The declaration came after Trump boasted on Twitter that America’s nuclear arsenal was far stronger and more powerful than ever before.

Earlier, Trump stunned the world with a bold message to leader Kim Jong-Un that appeared to borrow from Pyongyang’s own rhetorical arsenal, saying the North faced fire and fury like the world had never seen. The war of words over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes is raising fears of a miscalculation that could lead to catastrophic consequences on the Korean peninsula – and beyond.

Last month the North carried out two successful tests of an intercontinental ballistic missile, bringing much of the US mainland within its range.

The region was facing “a mini Cuban Missile Crisis”, Seoul’s Yonsei University professor John Delury said.

Trump’s “fire and fury” remarks were “a load of nonsense”, the commander of the North’s missile forces, Kim Rak-Gyom said.

“Sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason,” he added.

The military would complete the Guam plan by mid-August and submit it to Kim Jong-Un for consideration, he said. The distinctively precise statement said the four missiles would be launched simultaneously and overfly the Japanese prefectures of Shimane, Hiroshima and Kochi. They would have a flight time of 17 minutes 45 seconds, travel 3 356.7km and come down 30 to 40km away from Guam, it said – which would put the impact points just outside US territorial waters.

Japan, which has in the past warned it would shoot down any North Korean missiles that threaten its territory, responded that it could never tolerate provocations from the state.

The western Pacific island of Guam is home to US strategic assets including long-range bombers and military jets and submarines, which are regularly deployed for shows of force in and near the Korean peninsula, to Pyongyang’s fury.

During the Cold War in the 1980s the Soviet Union sent unarmed missiles to come down in the Pacific within 1 000km of Hawaii. Analysts said a North Korean launch towards Guam would put the US in a dilemma: if it did not attempt to intercept the missiles, its credibility would be damaged and the North would feel emboldened to carry out a full-range ICBM test.

But if an intercept was attempted and any of the rockets got through it would undermine the effectiveness of the United States’ ballistic missile defence.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula tend to increase when Seoul and Washington launch major military joint exercises, and the next, Ulchi Freedom Guardian, is set to kick off around August 21.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he did not believe there was any imminent threat to Guam or other US targets, and expressed hope that diplomatic pressure would prevail in the crisis.

The United Nations imposed a seventh set of sanctions on Pyongyang at the weekend that could cost North Korea $1-billion (R13-billion) a year, with even the regime’s main ally China voting for the US-drafted proposal. — AFP