NUCLEAR BOMB THREAT TO TRUMP
North Korea warns of war
A NUCLEAR war between North Korea and the US could break out “at any moment”, it was feared last night.
The rogue state has vowed to “pulverise” American bases in South Korea and its capital Seoul in a confrontation with Donald Trump.
North Korea’s vice-minister, Han Song Ryol, declared: “If the US comes with reckless military manoeuvres then we will confront it with a pre-emptive strike. We’ve got a powerful nuclear deterrent
already in our hands, and we certainly will not keep our arms crossed in the face of a US pre-emptive strike.”
China, North Korea’s only ally, said war “could break out at any moment”.
A flashpoint could come as early as today when North Korea marks the 105th year of the birth of its founder Kim Il-Sung.
Analysts believe North Korea’s present leader, Kim Jong-un, may choose to celebrate the so-called Day of the Sun by carrying out a sixth nuclear bomb test or blasting more ballistic missiles towards Japan in defiance of UN sanctions.
But the US has told North Korea that its policy of “strategic patience” is over.
President Donald Trump this week diverted an aircraft carrier battle group to the area and put pressure on China, North Korea’s only ally, to intervene.
He tweeted: “If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them! USA”.
Tomorrow, US Vice President Mike Pence is due in South Korea to show solidarity with the US ally.
Analyst Richard Kemp said President Trump had sent a stark message to Kim that he is not afraid of striking at his enemies.
Dangerous
Last week the President gave the order to fire 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian government airbase suspected of unleashing chemical weapons.
And on Thursday US forces devastated Islamic State positions in Afghanistan by dropping its most powerful conventional bomb.
A spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry’s Institute for Disarmament and Peace warned the situation was at “the brink of a war”.
He said: “The US introduces into the Korean peninsula, the world’s biggest hotspot, huge nuclear strategic assets, seriously threatening peace and security of the peninsula and pushing the situation there to the brink of a war.
“This has created a dangerous situation in which a thermo-nuclear war may break out any moment on the peninsula and posed a serious threat to the world peace and security, to say nothing of those in Northeast Asia.”
Another official statement from North Korea accused President Trump of “blackmail”.
It said: “The Trump administration, which made a surprise guided cruisemissile strike on Syria on April 6, has entered the path of open threat and blackmail. The army and people of the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) will, as ever, courageously counter those who encroach upon the dignity and sovereignty of the DPRK and will always mercilessly ravage all provocative options of the US.”
A statement from the Korean People’s Army said US military bases in South Korea “as well as the headquarters of evils such as the Blue House [the South Korean president’s residence] would be pulverised within a few minutes”.
Meanwhile, Washington-based analysts 38 North have reported “unusually high levels of activity” in recent weeks at North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site.
US sources played down reports that President Trump is planning a pre-emptive conventional weapons strike if North Korea looks set to test another nuclear bomb.
But as the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson headed for the Korean peninsula, China and Russia urged restraint.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said: “One has the feeling that a conflict could break out at any moment.
“We call on all parties to refrain from provoking and threatening each other, whether in words or actions, and not let the situation get to an irreversible and unmanageable stage.”
He added: “If a war occurs, the result is a situation in which everybody loses and there can be no winner.”
In a sign of growing regional fears,
China’s national airline, Air China, cancelled some flights to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, from Monday due to “low demand”.
The Kremlin called for a diplomatic solution. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We call on all countries for restraint, we call on all the countries to refrain from any actions that could amount to provocative steps.”
Meanwhile, the Japanese government is dusting off plans to evacuate about 57,000 of its citizens in South Korea in the event of war.
North Korea is suspected of trying to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles so it can launch a nuclear attack on the US.
In the past 11 years it has carried out five nuclear bomb tests but is thought to still be a few years away from developing nuclear missiles that could reach America’s west coast.
Retired British Army officer, Colonel Richard Kemp, who worked in intelligence, said President Trump’s latest military interventions have sent a strong message to North Korea and other pariah states such as Iran.
Strike
“Both the cruise missiles strike against Syria and the bombing of IS in Afghanistan will have sent a message to Kim,” he said.
“The missions weren’t specifically designed to do this but… it will have sent a message to a number of regimes who will have taken stock of how far they can push the US.”
In Washington, President Trump praised China’s President, hinting that Xi Jinping may be ready to use his influence over Kim.
“I think China has really been working very hard. I have really gotten to like President Xi,” he said.
Asked if the raids on Syria and Afghanistan had sent a message to Kim, he said: “I do not know if this sends a message. It does not make any difference if it does or not.
“North Korea is a problem. The problem will be taken care of.”
NORTH KOREA’S Vice Minister Han Song Ryol has warned that the US President’s “aggressive” tweets have pushed the world to the brink of a third world war. It is believed that the repressive state will launch another nuclear weapons test today and there is a possibility that the US will launch a pre-emptive strike to prevent this.
China, alarmed by the increase in tension in the region, has warned that war could break out at any minute and is to suspend flights between the North Korean capital of Pyongyang and Beijing. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has said that there would be “no winner” in any war that breaks out in the region. The Kremlin is also watching events nervously.
For many years the outlandish behaviour of the North Korean regime has been a cause for alarm. Tension along its border with South Korea has been high since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
When handling dangerous lunatics – such as the leadership of North Korea – it is always wise to speak in a calm voice and try not to inflame the situation. This has been achieved for more than 60 years. The downside of course is that by not confronting North Korea it has been allowed to proceed with its inhuman treatment of its own people and to develop nuclear weapons.
With his act of sending an “armada” towards North Korea, Donald Trump, (as Ross Clark, writes on this page) is playing with fire. When Russia and China sound reasonable in comparison then we are all in deep water.