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S Korea, Japan support US’ firm stance on N Korea

SEOUL — South Korea and Japan yesterday welcomed the United States’ strong resolve to deal with North Korea after President Donald Trump’s threat to “totally destroy” the reclusive nation if provoked, although analysts cautioned that such strong language may be counterproductive.

SEOUL — South Korea and Japan yesterday welcomed the United States’ strong resolve to deal with North Korea after President Donald Trump’s threat to “totally destroy” the reclusive nation if provoked, although analysts cautioned that such strong language may be counterproductive.

While the North remained silent following Mr Trump’s Tuesday speech at the United Nations General Assembly, the office of South Korean President Moon Jae-in described Mr Trump’s words as “portraying a firm and specific stance on the key issues regarding keeping peace and safety that the international community and the United Nations are faced with”.

“It clearly showed how seriously the United States government views North Korea’s nuclear programme as the president spent an unusual amount of time discussing the issue,” said the presidential Blue House in a statement, adding that Mr Trump’s speech “reaffirmed that North Korea should be made to realise denuclearisation is the only way to the future through utmost sanctions and pressure.”

In a hard-hitting speech, Mr Trump mocked North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a “rocket man” for his repeated ballistic missile launches and nuclear tests that have rattled the globe.

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” the US leader told the 193-member world body. “Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime.”

North Korea however has repeatedly said it needs its weapons to protect itself from US aggression. Seoul and Washington are technically still at war with Pyongyang after the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce, not a peace treaty.

In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Japan appreciated Mr Trump’s approach to “changing North Korea’s policy stance, denuclearising the country and calling on the international community, including China and Russia, for their cooperation towards strengthening pressure on North Korea”.

China, North Korea’s main ally and trading partner, said the UN resolutions were clear the Korean Peninsula issue should be resolved peacefully through political and diplomatic means.

The resolutions passed by the UN Security Council on North Korea reflected the “common will and consensus of the international community” to denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular briefing yesterday.

Meanwhile, analysts said far from persuading Mr Kim to give up his weapons programme, they expressed worries that Mr Trump’s speech could have the opposite effect.

“With those words, President Trump handed the Kim regime the soundbite of the century,” said Mr Marcus Noland at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“It will play on a continuous loop on North Korean national television” as proof that Pyongyang needs an effective deterrent against what it views as American aggression.

Ms Mira Rapp-Hooper, senior research scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School, said it was unclear whether Mr Trump’s “apocalyptic” language was a strategy to scare Beijing to take a tougher line on its isolated neighbour, or a reflection of his belief in the effectiveness of military action.

“But, basically, that’s an unholy choice between a real threat of deliberate war and a reckless gamble that risks horrid miscalculation,” she said.

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