Democratic People’s Republic of Korea - Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association

North Korea will not hold ‘useless’ summits with US: KCNA

CNA — Sun, 17 Nov 2019 12:02:09 +0000

SEOUL: North Korea will not offer anything for US President Donald Trump to brag about without receiving anything in return, a statement on its state news agency KCNA said on Monday (Nov 18).

North Korea was not interested in a summit that was “useless to itself”, said the statement, under the name of Foreign Ministry adviser Kim Kye Gwan, referring to Trump’s message on Sunday to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Twitter.

“If the US does not really want to let go of its dialogue with us, it should make a decision to withdraw its hostile policy of viewing us as an enemy,” the KCNA statement said.

“You should act quickly, get the deal done,” Trump tweeted Sunday, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “See you soon!”

Kim and Trump have met three times since June last year, but talks have been gridlocked since their Hanoi summit in February broke up in disagreement over sanctions relief, while October’s working-level talks rapidly broke down in Sweden.

Pyongyang has set Washington a deadline of the end of the year to come forward with a fresh offer.

The implied criticism of Trump by name is a departure for Pyongyang, which has long limited its frustration to other administration officials.

Last month, adviser Kim declared: “Contrary to the political judgment and intention of President Trump, Washington political circles and DPRK policymakers of the US administration are hostile to the DPRK for no reason,” using the initials of North Korea’s official name.

In September he was fulsome in his praise for the US leader, saying that Trump was “different from his predecessors” and that he placed his hopes in “President Trump’s wise option and bold decision”.

But as the North’s deadline approaches it has issued a series of increasingly assertive statements – while also carrying out a number of weapons launches.

Washington should withdraw its “hostile policy” if it wants the dialogue to continue, Kim said Monday, without elaborating further.

Trump’s tweet came after Washington and Seoul agreed to postpone annual joint aerial exercises to create space for diplomacy with Pyongyang, which condemns such drills as preparations for invasion.

Source: Agencies/ga

Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/north-korea-useless-summits-us-donald-trump-kcna-12103796

[Disclaimer]

The post North Korea will not hold ‘useless’ summits with US: KCNA first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

US and North Korea trade warnings on nuclear strikes

The Daily Star — Tue, 06 Feb 2018 07:20:32 +0000

US Ambassador Robert Wood (R) waits next to US Army Captain Murzban Morris of the Department of Defense Joint Staff before their address on North Korea to the Conference on Disarmament at the United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland on August 30, 2017. Reuters file photo

Reuters, Geneva

The United States said today that North Korea may be only months away from being able to strike the US mainland with a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile, while Pyongyang said Washington was considering a pre-emptive strike against it.

The clash came at the United Nations-sponsored Conference on Disarmament days after the Trump administration said it will expand its nuclear capability.

US disarmament ambassador Robert Wood, addressing the Geneva forum, also warned that arsenals in China and Russia were expanding, drawing rebukes from their respective delegations.

“Russia, China and North Korea are growing their stockpiles, increasing the prominence of nuclear weapons in their security strategies, and – in some cases – pursuing the development of new nuclear capabilities to threaten other peaceful nations,” Wood said.

North Korea “may now be only months away from the capability to strike the US with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles”, he said, giving no further detail on the source of the statement.

North Korea is under tightening UN Security Council resolutions for its banned nuclear and ballistic missile programs, but relations with South Korea have softened in the lead-up to the Pyeongchang Olympic Games opening on February 9.

North Korea accused the United States of seeking to aggravate the situation on the divided Korean peninsula by “deploying large nuclear assets” nearby and lay the ground for a possible pre-emptive strike against it.

“In view of the nature and scale of US military reinforcements, they are designed to make a pre-emptive strike against the DPRK,” North Korean diplomat Ju Yong Chol told the talks, referring to his country’s official name the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“US officials including the defense secretary and the CIA director repeatedly talked about DPRK nuclear and missile threat to justify their argument for a military option and a new concept of a so-called ‘bloody nose’, a limited pre-emptive strike on the DPRK is under consideration within the US administration,” Ju said.

Wood took the floor to retort: “If you claim to want peace, end your nuclear and ballistic missile tests and stop your provocative behavior and threats”.

Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/world/us-and-north-korea-trade-warnings-nuclear-strikes-1530784

[Disclaimer]

The post US and North Korea trade warnings on nuclear strikes first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Trump Threatens ‘Fire and Fury’ Against North Korea if It Endangers U.S.

Peter Baker and Choe Sang-Hunaug — Tue, 08 Aug 2017 22:46:29 +0000

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — President Trump threatened on Tuesday to unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea if it endangers the United States as tensions with the isolated nuclear-armed state grow into perhaps the most serious foreign policy challenge yet in his young administration.

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” Mr. Trump told reporters at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal state and as I said they will be met with fire and fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

The president’s comments came as North Korea earlier in the day escalated its criticism of the United States, as well as its neighboring allies, by warning that it will mobilize all its resources to take “physical action” in retaliation against the latest round of United Nations sanctions.

The statement, carried by the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency, was the strongest indication yet that the country could conduct another nuclear or missile test, as it had often done in response to past United Nations sanctions. Until now, the North’s response to the latest sanctions had been limited to strident yet vague warnings, such as threatening retaliation “thousands of times over.”

“Packs of wolves are coming in attack to strangle a nation,” the North Korean statement said. “They should be mindful that the D.P.R.K.’s strategic steps accompanied by physical action will be taken mercilessly with the mobilization of all its national strength.”

D.P.R.K. stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

North Korea’s statement on Tuesday appeared to defy efforts by both Washington and Beijing to defuse the tense situation.

On Monday, while attending a regional security meeting of foreign ministers in Manila, the United States’ secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, kept the door open for talks with North Korea, suggesting that the country should stop its recent string of missile launches to set the stage for negotiations over its weapons programs. At the same venue, Foreign Minister Wang Yi of China said he told his North Korean counterpart, Ri Yong-ho, that the North should stop carrying out nuclear and missile tests.

Incensed by the North’s two intercontinental ballistic missile tests last month, the United Nations Security Council adopted a new sanctions resolution over the weekend, the eighth since the country conducted its first nuclear test in 2006. Backers of the resolution said the new sanctions would cut North Korea’s meager annual export revenue by about a third, impeding its ability to raise cash for its weapons programs.

President Trump praised the sanctions in a tweet on Tuesday morning. “After many years of failure, countries are coming together to finally address the dangers posed by North Korea,” he said. “We must be tough & decisive!”

The sanctions ban member countries from importing coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore and seafood from North Korea. They also prohibit member nations from hosting any additional workers from the North above their current levels. Washington called the restrictions “the most stringent set of sanctions on any country in a generation.”

But strong doubts remain over how rigorously China and Russia, the North’s two neighboring allies, will enforce the sanctions.

The sanctions also do not impair the North’s ability to import oil and export clothing and textiles that its workers produce for Chinese companies, although the sanctions ban new joint ventures with North Korea and any new investment in current joint ventures. Clothing and textile exports are a leading source of foreign currency for the impoverished country.

Officials and analysts still doubt that North Korea has mastered the technology needed to deliver a nuclear payload on an intercontinental ballistic missile. But its last ICBM test, conducted on July 28, alarmed Washington and its allies by demonstrating that missiles now could potentially reach much the continental United States.

“North Korea’s development of ballistic missiles and its nuclear program are becoming increasingly real and imminent problems for the Asia-Pacific region including Japan, as well as the rest of the world,” the Japanese government said in an annual threat assessment released on Tuesday. “It is possible that North Korea has already achieved the miniaturization of nuclear weapons and has acquired nuclear warheads.”

One of the last technical hurdles North Korea must clear is mastering the “re-entry” know-how to protect a small nuclear warhead as the missile crashes through the earth’s atmosphere.

The North’s fast-advancing missile capabilities have left its neighbors South Korea and Japan scrambling for ways to protect themselves. South Korea is racing to build up its monitoring and striking capabilities so that its radars and reconnaissance planes can track and neutralize North Korean missiles in pre-emptive attacks.

In March, a group of Japanese governing party lawmakers led by Itsunori Onodera, who became Japan’s new defense minister on Thursday, urged Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to consider acquiring the capability to hit enemy bases in what would be a drastic change in the country’s post-World War II pacifist defense posture, Reuters reported on Tuesday. Tokyo has so far avoided taking the controversial and costly step of acquiring bombers or cruise missiles with enough range to strike other countries.

“North Korea’s missile launches have escalated tensions both in terms of quality and quantity. I would like to study if our current missile defense is sufficient just with the Aegis destroyers and PAC-3,” the surface-to-air missile interceptors, Mr. Onodera said on Friday, according to The Associated Press.

In South Korea, some conservative politicians and analysts are calling for the reintroduction of American tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea to establish a “balance of terror” against the North. The United States withdrew all nuclear weapons from the South in the early 1990s, though it occasionally sends nuclear-capable bombers and submarines here in exercises.

On Tuesday, North Korea barely held back its disdain for its traditional allies, China and Russia, for acquiescing to American pressure to impose tougher sanctions.

“The recent sanctions resolution cooked up by the U.S. and its followers is an outcome of the horror and uneasiness of the U.S. taken aback by the might and mettle of the D.P.R.K.,” its statement said. “It is also the label of the weakness and servility of the riffraff who showed their hands in favor of adopting the resolution, as they are scared by the U.S.”

The statement did not mention China or Russia by name, only referring to “big countries” that it said abandoned their “creed, conscience and obligation” and voted for the sanctions to gain favor with President Trump.

Peter Baker reported from Bridgewater, N.J., and Choe Sang-Hun from Seoul, South Korea.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/08/world/asia/north-korea-un-sanctions-nuclear-missile-united-nations.html

[Disclaimer]

The post Trump Threatens ‘Fire and Fury’ Against North Korea if It Endangers U.S. first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.