As U.S. warships head to the western Pacific Ocean to establish a presence near the Korean Peninsula, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is preparing to chair a meeting at the United Nations later this month focused on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, Voice of America reported.
The strike team, dubbed Carl Vinson, includes an aircraft carrier and will make its way from Singapore towards the Korean Peninsula, Aljazeera reported on Sunday.
The move is in response to the Communist regime’s “reckless, irresponsible” recent missile tests, a U.S. Navy official said.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told reporters last week that Tillerson will oversee the April 28 meeting of the United Nations Security Council. The U.S. has chairmanship of the council for the month of April.
The meeting comes after President Donald Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Florida last week where discussions surely included North Korea and China’s unwillingness so far to press North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-un to stop his provocative actions.
“I think the United States has seen China for 25-plus years say that they are concerned about North Korea, but we haven’t seen them act like they are concerned about North Korea,” Haley said. “I think this administration wants to see them act, and I think they are going to pressure them to do that,” Haley said.
In an interview with London’s Financial Times, Trump said that if China is not going to solve the problem of North Korea, “we will,” VOA reported.
“China has a great influence over North Korea,” Trump said. ”And China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won’t … and if they don’t, it won’t be good for anyone.”
North Korea’s foreign ministry warned last month that its government is prepared to go to war with the United States, following Tillerson saying that the U.S. is prepared for military engagement with North Korea if any of our allies are attacked.
“The U.S. should face up to the situation of the world with its eyes wide open. The DPRK has the will and capability to fully respond to any war the U.S. would like to ignite,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying, according to the South Korean newswire service Yonhap.
“If the businessmen-turned-U.S.-authorities thought that they would frighten the DPRK, they would soon know that their method would not work on the latter,” the spokesman continued. “The world will soon witness what eventful significance the great victory won by the DPRK in the recent ground jet test of Korean-style high-thrust engine will carry.”
“Expert satellite imagery analysis suggests [North Korea] could well be preparing for a sixth [missile launch], with U.S. intelligence officials warning that North Korea could be less than two years away from developing a nuclear warhead that could reach the continental U.S.,” Aljazeera reported.
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