US not close to military option on North Korea

AUS special envoy said yesterday all options remain on the table for solving the nuclear standoff with North Korea but that he did not think the military option was close.

Joseph Yun, speaking to reporters in the Japanese capital, said the United States was seeking a peaceful resolution of the crisis and diplomacy was its preferred option.

The US special envoy on North Korea said yesterday all options remain on the table for solving the nuclear standoff with the reclusive country but that he did not think the military option was close. “Our policy is very much for the peaceful resolution of the North Korean nuclear crisis. We’ve said over and over again that what we want to see is dialogue,” Yun said.

“Having said that, we also have said that all options are on the table and by all options, it has to include military options,” he said. “I don’t believe we are close to it.” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has refused to give up development of nuclear missiles capable of hitting the US in spite of increasingly severe UN sanctions, raising fears of a new war on the Korean peninsula. The North has fired test-fired missiles over Japan.