WASHINGTON/MOSCOW • Russia yesterday accused the United States of trying to provoke North Korean leader Kim Jong Un into „flying off the handle“ over his missile programme to hand Washington a pretext to destroy his country..
WASHINGTON/MOSCOW • Russia yesterday accused the United States of trying to provoke North Korean leader Kim Jong Un into „flying off the handle“ over his missile programme to hand Washington a pretext to destroy his country.
In some of his most robust comments on the subject to date, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also flatly rejected a US call, made earlier in the day, to cut ties with Pyongyang over its nuclear and ballistic missile programme and said US policy towards North Korea was deeply flawed.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have flared since North Korea said on Wednesday that it had successfully tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile in a „breakthrough“ that puts the US mainland within range of its nuclear weapons.
Following the test, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley called for other countries to sever all ties with Pyongyang, including cutting trade links and expelling North Korean workers.
At an emergency UN Security Council meeting, she warned the North Korean regime „will be utterly destroyed“ if a war breaks out and that President Donald Trump had called his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping „and told him that we have come to the point that China must cut off the oil from North Korea“.
While saying „our hopes are that China will show leadership and follow through“, Ms Haley also issued a warning: „China can do this on its own, or we can take the oil situation into our own hands.
