Mattis called the nascent talks between North and South Korea “a positive indicator,” but said it was too early to determine Kim Jong Un’s intent.
There is no indication that North Korea reacted after the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency mistakenly sent an alert Saturday warning of an imminent ballistic missile strike against the islands, U. S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Monday.
On Saturday morning local time, thousands of tourists and residents in Hawaii received mobile alerts on their phones that a missile would soon be impacting the state. With tensions high over the regime’s ballistic missile program and President Donald Trump recently warning North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, that he has the bigger «nuclear button,» the false alarm prompted panic that Hawaii was the target of an attack from North Korea.
Although state officials were told by U. S. Pacific Command that the warning was sent in error, Hawaii’s EMA didn’t correct the faulty message for 38 terrifying minutes.
Asked by NBC News if Kim reacted to the false alarm, Mattis said, “No. There is no information like that that I have.”
Speaking with two reporters aboard a military aircraft en route to a diplomatic summit on the rogue nation in Vancouver, Canada, Mattis also said there wasn’t any sign that North and South Korea used their newly reactivated communications hotline to clarify that North Korea had not, in fact, fired upon the U.
