Secretary of State Rex Tillerson encouraged North Korea to seek the path of peace, warning that if it doesn’t, it could ‘”trigger an option.”
The United States is still pursuing diplomatic efforts to resolve the situation with North Korea, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Tuesday, but he warned that if Pyongyang doesn’t choose the path of engagement “they themselves will trigger an option.”
Asked at a news conference with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland about the possibility of talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Tillerson wouldn’t say whether talks have taken place.
“We’re at a very tenuous stage in terms of how far North Korea has taken their program and what we can do to convince them to take an alternative path,” Tillerson said. “When we get into who’s talking to who and what was said, if we want that to be made known or made public, we will announce it.”
The comments came days after Hawaii’s emergency management agency system mistakenly warned residents of an inbound ballistic missile threat. The errant warning, which highlighted the risk of a missile test or strike that could affect the state, terrified some Hawaiians.
Asked whether Americans should be worried about war with North Korea, Tillerson said the North has made “significant advances” in its nuclear weapons program and intercontinental ballistic missile systems, but “I think we all need to be very sober and clear-eyed about the current situation.
