US warns N Korea on missiles
‘Catastrophic consequences’ if it continues with nuclear plan
NORTH Korea testfired a ballistic missile yesterday shortly after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that failure to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes could lead to “catastrophic consequences”.
US and South Korean officials said the test appeared to have failed, in what would be the North’s fourth straight unsuccessful test since March.
It came as the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group arrived in waters near the Korean peninsula to join the USS Michigan, a guided missile submarine that docked in South Korea on Tuesday.
Tillerson, in a UN Security Council meeting on North Korea on Friday, repeated the Trump administration’s position that all options were on the table if Pyongyang persisted with its development.
“The threat of a nuclear attack on Seoul, or Tokyo, is real, and only a matter of time before North Korea develops the capability to strike the US mainland,” he said.
“Failing to act now on the most pressing security issue in the world may bring catastrophic consequences.”
US President Donald Trump said North Korea was his biggest global challenge.
“North Korea disrespected the wishes of China and its highly respected president when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!” Trump said in a post on Twitter after the launch.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the UN meeting it was not only up to China to solve the North Korean problem. “The key to solving the nuclear issue on the peninsula does not lie in the hands of the Chinese side,” Wang said.
In a commentary yesterday, China’s official Xinhua news agency said North Korea and the US needed to tread cautiously. “If both sides fail to make such necessary concessions, then not only will the two countries but the whole region and the whole world end up paying a heavy price for a possible confrontation.”
Trump said he had praised Chinese leader Xi Jinping for “trying very hard” on North Korea but warned a “major, major conflict” between the US and North Korea was possible.
The North has been conducting missile and nuclear weapons-related activities at an unprecedented rate and is believed to have made some progress in developing intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles.
Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks over fears the North may conduct a long-range missile test, or its sixth nuclear test, around the time of the April 15 anniversary of its founder’s birth.
US officials said the North Koreans had probably tested a medium-range missile known as a KN-17 and it appeared to have broken up within minutes of taking off.
The South Korean military said the missile reached an altitude of 71km before disintegrating. It said the launch was a clear violation of UN resolutions and warned the North not to act rashly.
Kim Dong-yub, an expert at Kyungnam University’s Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, said North Korea might have got the data it wanted with the missile’s short flight, then blown it up in a bid to limit the anger of China, which warned Pyongyang against further provocation. – Reuters