Skip to main content

US promises action on any North Korea missile test: White House

US North Korea Action

WASHINGTON: The US would be very disappointed if North Korea tested a long-range or nuclear missile and would take appropriate action as a leading military and economic power, White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien said on Sunday.

Washington has many “tools in its tool kit” to respond to any such test, O’Brien said in an interview with ABC’s “This Week.”

“We’ll reserve judgment but the United States will take action as we do in these situations,” he said. “If Kim Jong Un takes that approach we’ll be extraordinarily disappointed and we’ll demonstrate that disappointment.”

North Korea has asked Washington to offer a new initiative to iron out differences over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. It warned Washington this month that failure to meet its expectations could result in an unwanted “Christmas gift.”

US military commanders have said the North Korean move could involve the testing of a long-range missile – something North Korea has suspended, along with nuclear bomb tests, since 2017.

O’Brien said the United States and North Korea had open channels of communication but did not elaborate. He said Washington hoped North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would live up to his commitments to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

The US was still the leading military power in the world and had tremendous economic power, said O’Brien. “There’s a lot of pressure that we can bring to bear,” he said.

North Korea threatened a Christmas surprise, despite the fact that Trump and Kim have engaged in personal diplomacy over the years and have a good personal relationship, O’Brien said.

“So perhaps he’s reconsidered that,” O’Brien added. “But we will have to wait and see. We’re going to monitor it closely. It’s a situation that concerns us, of course.”

Kim convened a meeting of top ruling party officials on Saturday to discuss important policy matters ahead of the year-end deadline set by Kim for the United States, the state news agency said on Sunday.

Senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said meetings between the two leaders have produced “very little” on denuclearization.

The post US promises action on any North Korea missile test: White House appeared first on ARY NEWS.



from ARY NEWS https://ift.tt/354db8B
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trump says he urged team to ‘slow’ COVID-19 testing

US President Donald Trump said Saturday he was encouraging health officials in his administration to slow down coronavirus testing, arguing that increased tests lead to more cases being discovered. The president has claimed falsely on several occasions that surges of COVID-19 in several states can be explained by greater numbers of diagnostic tests. At his first rally since the outbreak forced nationwide shutdowns in March, Trump told the crowd in Tulsa, Oklahoma that testing was a “double-edged sword.” The United States — which has more deaths and cases than any other country — has carried out more than 25 million coronavirus tests, placing it outside the top 20 countries in the world, per capita. “Here is the bad part: When you do testing to that extent, you are going to find more people, you will find more cases,” Trump argued. “So I said to my people ‘slow the testing down.’ They test and they test.” It was not clear from Trump’s tone if he was playing to the crowd, who ...
Post a Comment
Read more

IT ministry forms panel to review social media rules

ISLAMABAD: While uproar against the new rules to regulate social media continues from various segments of society, including parliamentarians, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and civil society, the information technology ministry on Friday formed a committee to review the rules. The federal cabinet approved the rules on Feb 11, but later after opposition from various quarters, including companies that manage different social media platforms, the prime minister announced that a fresh consultation process would be launched over the Citizens Protection (Against Online Harm) Rules 2020. The committee formed by the IT ministry is headed by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority Chairman Amir Azeem Bajwa while its members are Eazaz Aslam Dar, additional secretary of IT; Tania Aidrus, member of the Strategic Reforms Imple­mentation Unit, Prime Minister Office; and Dr Arslan Khalid, focal person on digital media at the PM Office. Federal Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen Ma...
Post a Comment
Read more

IS confirms Baghdadi’s death, vows revenge

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.—AP BEIRUT: The Islamic State militant group confirmed the death of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a statement on Thursday and named his replacement as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi. “We mourn you ... commander of the faithful,” said Abu Hamza al-Quraishi — presented as the group’s new spokesman — in an audio statement. Baghdadi, who led IS since 2014 and was the world’s most wanted man, was killed in a US special forces raid in Syria’s province of Idlib on Sunday. The group also confirmed the killing in another raid the following day of the group’s previous spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir. The statement said the group’s legislative and consultative body convened after the 48-year-old Iraqi-born jihadist chief’s death. “The Islamic State shura council convened immediately after confirming the martyrdom of Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the elders of the holy warriors agreed” on a replacement, said the seven-minute message. Little is known abou...
Post a Comment
Read more