US President Donald Trump said on Thursday a major conflict with North Korea is possible in the standoff over its nuclear and missile programs, but he would prefer a diplomatic outcome to the dispute.
‘There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea. Absolutely,’ Trump said ahead of his 100th day in office on Saturday.
Nonetheless, he said he wanted to peacefully resolve the crisis, a path that he and his administration are emphasizing by preparing a variety of new economic sanctions while not taking the military option off the table.
‘We’d love to solve things diplomatically but it’s very difficult,’ he said.
Trump lavished praise on Chinese President Xi Jinping for Chinese assistance in trying to rein in North Korea. The two leaders met in Florida earlier this month.
‘I believe he is trying very hard. He certainly doesn’t want to see turmoil and death. He doesn’t want to see it.
‘He is a good man. He is a very good man and I got to know him very well.
‘With that being said, he loves China and he loves the people of China. I know he would like to be able to do something, perhaps it’s possible that he can’t.’
Trump spoke on Thursday, just a day after he and his top national security advisers briefed US lawmakers on the North Korean threat.
They said that North Korea was ‘an urgent national security threat and top foreign policy priority.’
It said it was focusing on economic and diplomatic pressure, including Chinese cooperation in containing its defiant neighbor and ally, and remained open to negotiations.
Trump, asked if he considered North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to be rational, said he was operating from the assumption that he is rational. He noted that Kim had taken over his country at an early age.
‘He’s 27 years old. His father dies, took over a regime. So say what you want but that is not easy, especially at that age.
‘I’m not giving him credit or not giving him credit, I’m just saying that’s a very hard thing to do.
‘As to whether or not he’s rational, I have no opinion on it. I hope he’s rational.’
On Friday secretary of state Rex Tillerson will press the United Nations Security Council on sanctions to further isolate Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs.
Among those in attendance will be Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Tillerson said he wanted China – North Korea’s only ally, albeit an increasingly strained one – to take the lead in diplomacy to resolve the crisis.
‘We are going to test their willingness to help us address the serious threat,’ he told Fox News on Thursday.
He added: ‘We are going to be discussing what steps may be necessary to increase pressure on Pyongyang to have them reconsider their current posture.
US officials said military strikes remained an option but played down the prospect, though the administration has sent an aircraft carrier and a nuclear-powered submarine to the region in a show of force.
Any direct US military action would run the risk of massive North Korean retaliation and huge casualties in Japan and South Korea, and among US forces in both countries.
However, on Thursday the top US Navy official in the Pacific theater said that he would be ready to fight ‘tonight’.
Admiral Harry B Harris Jr, Commander of US Pacific Command, said that he would prefer a diplomatic end to tensions, and that he was confident in the leadership of Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
‘We want to bring Kim Jong-un to his senses – not to his knees,’ he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
However, he warned that the US needs to treat Kim as though he has the capability and intention to launch missiles at America or its allies, South Korea and Australia.
‘The North Korean crisis is the worst I’ve ever seen,’ he said.
Harris also said that South Korea would be protected from attack by the US-built Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system.
The THAAD itself has been the subject of discussion between Washington and Seoul, with Trump saying that he wants the country to pay for it.
”I informed South Korea it would be appropriate if they paid. It’s a billion dollar system,’ he said. ‘It’s phenomenal, shoots missiles right out of the sky.’
But a South Korean adviser said that there was no way the country could – or would – buy the system.
‘Even if we purchase THAAD, its main operation would be in the hands of the United States,’ said Kim Ki-jung, a foreign policy adviser to South Korean presidential front runner Moon Jae-in and professor at Seoul’s Yonsei University.
‘So purchasing it would be an impossible option. That was our topic when we were considering the options.’
A former US State Dept official speaking on condition of anonymity said that the system, the primary contractor for which is Lockheed-Martin, cost around $1.2 billion.
The US was not interested in selling it off, however, he said.
‘We want to retain THAAD in our arsenal, consistent with all other US weapons systems deployed on the Korean peninsula.
‘We own them. We retain them. We have the right to redeploy them.’
There were concerns on Thursday that Chinese hackers had tried to infiltrate a company linked to THAAD within the last month, most likely for intelligence-gathering, rather than disrupting it.
China has demanded that the US scale back its system, for fear that it will weaken their own ballistic capabilities and – as Beijing puts it – disrupt the balance of security in the region.
John Hultquist, the director of cyber espionage analysis at FireEye, told CNN: ‘China uses cyber espionage pretty regularly when Chinese interests are at stake to better understand facts on the ground.
‘We have evidence that they targeted at least one party that has been associated with the missile placements.’
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Seoul also claimed that China had launched a cyber attack on their infrastructure in March.
Hultquist said that he did not believe the attacks were made by North Korean hackers posing as Chinese agents online.
China dismissed the claims that it had hacked THAAD, but said that it would ‘continue to carry out live-fire military exercises and test new military equipment in order to firmly safeguard national security and regional peace and stability.’
That same day it presented its newest fighter jets to the world: the two-seater lightweight multi-purpose FC-1 Xiaolong, developed in collaboration with Pakistan.
China has long pushed for a diplomatic resolution to disagreements with North Korea, which it uses as a bulwark against US ally South Korea.
Beijing also worries that in the event of war, refugees will spill out of North Korea and across the Chinese border.
Russia also weighed in on the tensions on Thursday, during a meeting between premier Vladimir Putin and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.
Putin said that both countries agree that the situation has ‘seriously deteriorated.’
The Russian premier also advised that the US should ‘refrain from military rhetoric’ with regard to the Korean Peninsula.
However, his remarks were diminished somewhat by the fact that he made them during a military parade in memory of the 24 million Russians killed in the Second World War.
Putin has also called for the revival of six-party talks between Russia, the USA, South Korea, Japan and China.
On Wednesday both the US and North Korean governments spoke out on the possibility of war.
A North Korean representative told CNN on Wednesday that the country as no intention of stopping construction on nukes and ballistic missiles.
Sok Chol Won, director of the North’s Institute of Human Rights at the Academy of Social Sciences, said: ‘As long as America continues its hostile acts of aggression, we will never stop nuclear and missile tests.’
His comments came the day after North Korea conducted its biggest ever live-fire artillery exercise on Tuesday, to mark the 85th anniversary of its military’s creation.
When asked about the men, women and children believed to be held in North Korean prison camps, Sok said: ‘Those people are criminals who ran away, they’re paid to lie and encouraged by the US and their followers.’
The same day, North Korea released a propaganda video showing Washington being obliterated in a simulated military attack.
Also Wednesday, the White house called a meeting for the Senate to brief them on the country’s concerns and plans for the DPRK.
However, several of those who attended said that they questioned its usefulness.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, told the Washington Post: ‘There was very little, if anything new [in the presentation].’
He said: ‘I remain mystified about why the entire Senate had to be taken over to the White House rather than conducting it here.’
One Republican congressman, who declined to be named, said: ‘Several senators asked specifically ‘What is the policy?’ and the briefers gave us very, very few details.’
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