Diplomat says US at war with NKorea
UNITED NATIONS — North Korea’s top diplomat said Monday that a weekend tweet by President Donald Trump was a “declaration of war” and that North Korea has the right to retaliate by shooting down U.S. bombers, even in international airspace.
It was the latest escalation in a week of undiplomatic exchanges between North Korea and the U.S. during the U.N. General Assembly’s
annual ministerial meeting.
Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told reporters that the United Nations and the international community have said in recent days that they didn’t want “the war of words” to turn into “real action.”
But he said that by tweeting that North Korea’s leadership, led by Kim Jong Un, “won’t be around much longer,” Trump “declared the war on our country.”
Under the U.N. charter, Ri said, North Korea has the right to self-defense and “every right” to take countermeasures, “including the right to shoot down the United States strategic bombers even when they’re not yet inside the airspace border of our country.”
Hours later, the White House pushed back on Ri’s claim, saying: “We have not declared war on North Korea.” The Trump administration stressed that the U.S. is not seeking to overthrow North Korea’s government.
U.S. Cabinet officials, particularly Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, have insisted that the U.S.-led campaign of diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea is focused on eliminating the pariah state’s nuclear weapons program, not its totalitarian government.
But the more Trump muddies the picture, the tougher it may become to maintain cooperation with China and Russia, which seek a diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis, not a new U.S. ally suddenly popping up on their borders. It also risks snuffing out hopes of persuading Kim’s government to enter negotiations when its survival isn’t assured.
Trump tweeted Saturday: “Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!” Trump also used the derisive “Rocket Man” reference to Kim in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 19, but this time he added the word “little.”
This was not the first time North Korea has spoken about a declaration of war between the two countries. In July 2016, Pyongyang said U.S. sanctions imposed on Kim were “a declaration of war” against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — the country’s official name — and it made a similar statement after a new round of U.N. sanctions in December. The North Korean leader used the words again Friday.
The foreign minister’s brief statement to reporters, delivered outside his hotel before he headed off in a motorcade to return home, built on the escalating rhetoric between Kim and Trump.
All U.N. members and the world “should clearly remember that it was the U.S. who first declared war on our country,” the foreign minister said, adding that North Korea now has the right to take countermeasures and retaliate against U.S. bombers.
Ri ended his brief remarks by saying: “The question of who won’t be around much longer will be answered then.”
Military maneuvers by the U.S. and its allies are adding to tensions along the two Koreas’ heavily militarized border. In a show of might, U.S. bombers and fighter escorts flew Saturday to the farthest point north of the border between North and South Korea by any such American aircraft this century.
A Pentagon spokesman, Army Col. Rob Manning, said Monday that the operation was conducted in international airspace and legally permissible.
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha called for careful management of the tensions to prevent a conflict that would devastate the region.
“It’s very likely that North Korea will conduct further provocations,” Kang said. “Under these circumstances it is imperative that we — Korea and the United States — manage the situation with astuteness and steadfastness in order to prevent further escalation of tensions or any kind of accidental military clashes in the region which can quickly spiral out of control.
“There cannot be another war in the region,” Kang said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“There is still room for diplomacy,” Kang said, but “time is running out.”