Isolated North Korea’s latest missile test was a product of leader Kim Jong Un’s “state of paranoia, ” Nikki Haley said Sunday.
Isolated North Korea’s latest missile test was a product of leader Kim Jong Un’s “state of paranoia, ” UN Ambassador Nikki Haley said in a tough-talking Sunday interview.
Haley translated the dictatorship’s seventh ballistic missile launch this year as “a message to South Korea” days after the country elected liberal Moon Jae-in president — and insisted Kim was “absolutely” feeling U. S. efforts to “tighten the screws” in its escalating war of words with the North.
“I think you first have to get into Kim Jong Un’s head. Which is, he’s in a state of paranoia; he’s incredibly concerned about anything and everything around him, ” Haley said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I think this was a message to South Korea after the election.
“And so what we’ re gonna do is continue to tighten the screws, ” she added. “He feels it; he absolutely feels it. And we’ re going to continue, whether it’s sanctions, whether it’s press statements.”
North Korea test-fires ballistic missile into Sea of Japan
The former South Carolina governor — one of President Trump’s most vocal and visible foreign policy figures — also warned the supreme leader firing off missiles wasn’ t a viable path to getting in a room with Trump.
“Having a missile test is not the way to sit down with the President, because he’s absolutely not going to do it, ” Haley said. “He can sit there and say all the conditions he wants — until he meets our conditions, we’ re not sitting down with him.”
Trump had declared in a two-weeks-earlier interview that he’ d be “honored” to meet with the North Korean strongman “under the right circumstances.”
North Korea’s missile on Sunday flew 430 miles, South Korean and Japanese officials said. It landed in the sea about 60 miles south of Russia.
North Korea accuses U. S., South Korea of plotting to kill leader
The launch came two days after the North sent a rare letter to Congress condemning a fresh round of U. S. sanctions against the nation — and two weeks after its last ballistic test-fire, which failed soon after it launched.
The White House singled out Russia in an oddly phrased statement following Sunday’s missile launch.
“With the missile impacting so close to Russian soil — in fact, closer to Russia than to Japan — the President cannot imagine that Russia is pleased, ” the press secretary wrote.
“North Korea has been a flagrant menace for far too long. South Korea and Japan have been watching this situation closely with us. The United States maintains our ironclad commitment to stand with our allies in the face of the serious threat posed by North Korea.”
With News Wire Services
