Tillerson talks diplomacy with North Korea

5:33

US, N Korea talks continue through 'diplomacy' – Tillerson

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has insisted President Donald Trump wants to resolve the confrontation with North Korea through diplomacy.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Photo: RNZ / Hans Weston

Radio NZ,

16 October, 2017

It will continue until "the first bomb drops", he told CNN.

Sanctions and diplomacy, he said, had brought unprecedented international unity against North Korea's nuclear weapons programme.

Last month, Mr Trump told Mr Tillerson not to waste time seeking talks with Kim Jong-un.

Mr Tillerson's remarks come as the US and South Korea begin their latest joint military exercise in waters surrounding the Korean peninsula, involving fighter jets, destroyers and aircraft carriers.

The drills regularly anger the North, and Pyongyang has in the past denounced them as a "rehearsal for war".

In Sunday's interview, Mr Tillerson again refused to comment on whether he had referred to Mr Trump as a moron after a July meeting at the Pentagon.

"I'm not going to deal with that petty stuff," he replied, saying he would not dignify the question with an answer.

The president responded by challenging the secretary of state to an IQ test but a spokeswoman said later it had been a joke.

Lines of communication

In recent months, North Korea has defied international opinion by conducting its sixth nuclear test and launching two missiles over Japan.

Analysts say the secretive communist state is clearly set on developing a nuclear-capable missile, able to threaten the continental US, despite UN sanctions.

At the end of last month, Mr Tillerson disclosed that the US was in "direct contact" with the North and looking at the possibility of talks.

After months of heated rhetoric, it came as a surprise to some that the two countries had lines of communication.

However, the next day Mr Trump tweeted Mr Tillerson to say: "Save your energy Rex, we'll do what has to be done!"

- BBC

With his outrageous bias in favour of the Trump regime Turner is worth watching.

NORTH KOREA ANNOUNCES INTENT TO ATTACK - Missiles Reportedly "aimed" at US West Coast

Hal Turner,

15 October, 2017

Multiple reports coming out of east Asia say North Korea has decided they have "no choice but to use military force" and are presently aiming long-range missiles at the west Coast of the United States.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) which is the official, state-run mouthpiece of North Korea, said today:

"US provocations leave the DPRK with no other choice than to use military force." 

Earlier today, we reported North Korea had deployed at least 6 missiles on Transporter/Erector/Launcher (TEL) vehicles and moved them to differing parts of his country.

There is a small possibility that Kim has decided that war is inevitable. In that case, he will probably do as Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. Putin said that he learned in street fighting as a kid, that "if a fight is inevitable, it's best to throw the first punch."

This is, sadly, consistent with the spreading out at many locations, several missiles at once. If Kim is going to try anything serious, it would be best to have many decoys to make it harder to find the real payloads.

....and so we watch. 

Strange reports are also coming out claiming the North Korean missiles are "aimed at the US West coast" as shown above.

This seems bizarre since an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) would typically be aimed straight up to achieve orbit, then release its payload, which then steers to it's target before re-entering earth's atmosphere.

It is possible, however, that North Korea does not believe their warheads would survive the heat and stress of re-entry into the atmosphere, and are thus actually "aiming" the missiles for a sub-orbital flight across the Pacific.

This would be odd, but achievable.

On Saturday, Kim Jong-un’s regime sent a chilling warning shot to the US President telling him

“the US mainland will be reduced to ashes”

The secretive state said President Trump’s “rude remarks” will “accelerate the doom of the evil empire”

The warning, pumped out by the communist state's propaganda machine, is the latest escalation by North Korea in threats of nuclear war against the US. 

It came after two Air Force supersonic heavy bombers flew over the Korean peninsula in a show of force against Pyongyang on Tuesday night.

North Korean state media on Friday renewed a threat to launch missiles toward the US territory of Guam, warning that “reckless moves” by the US would compel Pyongyang to take action. 

North Korea first said it was examining a plan to target the Pacific island in August after US President Donald Trump warned the isolated regime would “face fire and fury like the world has never seen” following a US intelligence assessment that North Korea had produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead.

“We have already warned several times that we will take counteractions for self-defense, including a salvo of missiles into waters near the US territory of Guam,” the KCNA report quoted Kim Kwang Hak, a researcher at the Institute for American Studies of the North Korean Foreign Ministry, as saying.

“The US military action hardens our determination that the US should be tamed with fire and lets us take our hand closer to the ‘trigger’ for taking the toughest countermeasure,” Kim added.

The latest warnings from Pyongyang follow weeks of rising tensions, which promise to escalate further when US and South Korea joint naval exercises begin Monday.

Joint military exercises are particularly infuriating to Pyongyang. The North Korean government views them as a dress rehearsal for an invasion — even as the US insists they are purely defensive in nature.

The KCNA report listed a string of perceived US provocations — including a litany of bombastic threats from President Trump, recent deployments of a US guided-missile submarine and aircraft carrier to the region, and a new round of “high intensity” US and South Korea joint naval drills.

The article ended with a familiar warning: that the US would be solely responsible for “pushing the situation on the peninsula to the point of explosion.”

Alleged Pyongyang Propaganda Leaflets Found Near S Korean President's Office

Small bills have been spotted on the streets near Cheong Wa Dae, the official residence of the South Korean head of state, in Seoul, Yonhap reported. They are presumed to be North Korean propaganda leaflets. Officials said an investigation will be launched to find out how they made their way to the area.

Cheong Wa Dae security officials confirmed that a number of what is presumed to be Pyongyang propaganda leaflets were recently found in the area, with some even found in the yard of Chunchugwan, a press center on the eastern side of the presidential residence.

The bills carried at least three different messages condemning South Korea and the United States for hostility towards the North.

South Korea Developing Its Own Counter-Rocket System – Reports

South Korea has decided not to skate on thin ice by using Israel's Iron Dome system and to develop its own counter-rocket system amid tensions on the Peninsula.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said that South Korean Agency for Defense Development has been working on core technologies for such system based on a "hit-to-kill" platform, the Yonhap news agency reported.

The decision has been reportedly made after South Korean military decided not to buy Israel's Iron Dome system as it would not be effective against a massive attack using long-range rockets.

DPRK state-run media outlet KCNA September 3, 2017, handout purporting to show Pyongyang leader Kim Jong-un viewing newly developed miniaturized hydrogen bomb capable of being mounted on ICBM. // KCNA handout

Meanwhile, the joint week-long navy drills of the US and South Korean fleets have kicked off. About 40 vessels, including the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, are taking part in maneuvers in the waters around the Korean Peninsula.

The exercises come against the backdrop of escalating pressure on the Korean peninsula over Pyongyang's missile and nuclear tests.

Following the ballistic missile test, conducted by Pyongyang on September 15, the United States and North Korea exchanged threats, with the US President Donald Trump threatening to "totally destroy" North Korea if forced to defend the United States or its allies, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warning the United States of a highest level of hard-line countermeasures in history.