Kim vows weekly missile tests – and threatens ‘all-out war’
NORTH Korea last night vowed to continue to launch missiles every week and risk ‘all-out war’ after it was warned not to test the resolve of President Trump.
US Vice President Mike Pence had suggested Kim Jong-un could face the same retaliation as President Assad in Syria, and Islamic State in Afghanistan, after Pyongyang’s latest attempt to test-fire a ballistic missile.
Donald Trump appeared to reinforce the message at the White House, replying ‘Gotta behave’ when a reporter asked what message he had for North Korea’s leader.
Yesterday, as Mr Pence visited the demilitarised zone that divides the two Koreas, he hinted at military action and said the ‘era of strategic patience is over’.
But hours later, North Korea’s vice foreign minister Han Song-ryol was defiant, saying: ‘We’ll be conducting more missile tests on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis.’
Speaking to the BBC, he said there would be an ‘all-out war’ if the US was ‘reckless enough to use military means’.
Mr Han added: ‘The United States are disturbing the peace and global stability, insisting in a gangster logic.’
Tensions have been escalating in recent days, with heated rhetoric from all sides.
Going further, Pyongyang’s deputy UN ambassador accused the US of turning the Korean peninsula into ‘the world’s biggest hotspot’ – and claimed that Mr Trump had created ‘a dangerous situation in which a thermo-nuclear war may break out at any moment’.
Kim In-ryong said US-South Korean military exercises being staged now were the largest-ever ‘aggressive war drill’. He said his country’s measures to bolster its nuclear forces were self-defensive ‘to cope with the US vicious nuclear threat and blackmail’. North Korea ‘is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the US’, he added.
Speaking at the start of a ten-day tour of the region, accompanied by his family, Mr Pence earlier warned: ‘Just in the past two weeks, the world witnessed the strength and resolve of our new president in actions taken in Syria and Afghanistan. North Korea would do well not to test his resolve, or the strength of the armed forces of the United States in this region.
‘There was a period of strategic patience but the era of strategic patience is over.’
The US destroyed a Syrian airfield with 59 Tomahawk missiles after a chemical attack earlier this month. Days later it dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb ever unleashed in combat on caves and tunnels used by IS in Afghanistan.
On Sunday, North Korea launched a missile that exploded in seconds.
Mr Pence added: ‘We will defeat any attack, and we will meet any use of conventional or nuclear weapons with an overwhelming and effective response.’
He said he was hopeful China would use its ‘extraordinary levers’ to persuade the North to give up its nuclear arms.
But Russia and China deployed spy vessels to shadow a US aircraft carrier, destroyers and a submarine heading to North Korean waters. Beijing has sought Moscow’s help in averting the crisis over Pyongyang’s nuclear tests. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said: ‘I hope there won’t be any unilateral actions like we recently saw in Syria and the US will follow the policies Trump repeatedly declared during his election campaign.’
Syria’s ambassador to North Korea, Tammam Sulaiman, denounced the US’s ‘clear aggression’ and ‘history of interventions’ and said sending a ‘message’ to North Korea with a Syrian attack was ‘irresponsible’.
Mr Pence insisted a controversial missile defence system in South Korea would go ahead, and criticised China for its opposition to the shield.
He added: ‘We hope to achieve this objec-
‘May break out at any moment’
tive [denuclearisation of North Korea] through peaceful means but all options are on the table.’ Standing with South Korean acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn, Mr Pence said the US was ‘troubled by China’s economic retaliation against South Korea for taking appropriate steps to defend itself.
‘The better path would be to address the North Korean threat that is making such defensive measures necessary,’ he added.
South Korean officials said the US aircraft carrier was a show of force intended to deter the North from carrying out nuclear tests and firing missiles.
Kim Son-gyong, an official at North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said: ‘The Syrian incident proves our policy to bolster our national defence… is the correct policy.’ But he added: ‘If the US thinks this kind of thing will startle us, then they have misjudged us.’