South Korea and the United States were finishing annual war games on the Korean peninsula on Thursday amid high tension over North Korea’s weapons programmes and a disagreement between U. S. President Donald Trump and his defence secretary on how to respond.
SEOUL/TOKYO: South Korea and the United States were finishing annual war games on the Korean peninsula on Thursday amid high tension over North Korea’s weapons programmes and a disagreement between U. S. President Donald Trump and his defence secretary on how to respond.
A series of threats and missiles launches by North Korea, including one on Tuesday that flew over Japan, has fuelled a tense standoff with the United States and its Asian allies in recent weeks.
The drills, involving tens of thousands of U. S. and South Korean troops, have been focused on computer simulations but reports highlighting the prospect of more «visible» demonstrations of U. S. power in the region have circulated in the wake of Pyongyang’s latest test.
Trump on Wednesday declared «talking is not the answer» to resolving the long-standing impasse with North Korea.
«The U. S. has been talking to North Korea, and paying them extortion money, for 25 years, » Trump, who just last week said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was «starting to respect» the United States, wrote on Twitter. «Talking is not the answer!»
However, U. S. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, when asked by reporters just hours later if the United States was out of diplomatic solutions with North Korea, replied: «No.»
«We are never out of diplomatic solutions, » Mattis said before a meeting with his South Korean counterpart at the Pentagon. «We continue to work together, and the minister and I share a responsibility to provide for the protection of our nations, our populations and our interests.
