Trump cranks up North Korea threats as Pyongyang holds anti-U.S. rally

[chahlley]

(World Today Monday 25 September 2017)

Trump cranks up North Korea threats as Pyongyang holds anti-U.S. rally

KCNA picture of an anti-U.S. rally at Kim Il Sung Square. Photo: Reuters

SEOUL/NEW YORK — President Donald Trump dialled up the rhetoric against North Korea again at the weekend, warning the country’s foreign minister that he and leader Kim Jongun “won’t be around much longer”, as Pyongyang staged a major anti-American rally.
North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho told the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday that targeting the United States mainland with its rockets was inevitable after “Mr Evil President” (the American leader) called Mr Kim a “rocket man on a suicide mission”.
“Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at UN. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!”
Mr Trump said on Twitter late on Saturday.
Mr Trump and Mr Kim have traded increasingly threatening and personal insults as Pyongyang races towards its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the US — something Mr Trump has vowed to prevent.
Analysts say the escalation in rhetoric is increasing the risk of a miscalculation by one side or the other that could have massive repercussions.
North Korea’s state-run Korean Central Television aired a video yesterday showing tens of thousands of people attending an anti-US rally at Kim Il-sung square in Pyongyang.
The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said more than 100,000 people gathered for the rally on Saturday and delivered speeches supporting comments made by Mr Kim earlier in the week.
“We are waiting for the right time to have a final battle with the US, the evil empire, and to remove the US from the world,” the KCNA quoted Mr Ri Il-bae, a commanding officer of the Red Guards, as saying. “Once respected Supreme commander Kim
Jong-un gives an order, we will annihilate the group of aggressors.”
In an unprecedented statement on Friday, Mr Kim described Mr Trump as a “mentally deranged US dotard” whom he would tame with fire.
Mr Kim said the North would consider the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history” against the US and that Mr Trump’s comments had confirmed his nuclear programme was “the correct path”.
His comments came after Mr Trump threatened in his maiden UN address on Thursday to “totally destroy” the country of 26 million people.
North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear bomb test on Sept 3, prompting another round of UN sanctions. Pyongyang said on Friday it might test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean.
US Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers escorted by fighters flew in international airspace over waters east of North Korea on Saturday in a show of force the Pentagon said indicated the range of military options available to Mr Trump.
The US bombers’ flight was the farthest north of the demilitarised zone separating North and South Korea that any US fighter jet or bomber had flown in the 21st century, the Pentagon said.
Ms Dana White, the Defence Department’s chief spokeswoman added: “This mission is a demonstration of US resolve and a clear message that the president has many military options to defeat any threat.”
The patrols came after officials and experts said a small earthquake near North Korea’s nuclear test site on Saturday was probably not manmade, easing fears that Pyongyang had exploded another nuclear bomb just weeks after its previous one.
“We now can’t avoid the military tensions on the Korean Peninsula further escalating,” said Mr Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korea expert at the Sejong Institute, a think-tank near Seoul. The standoff is intensifying partly because “South Korea lacks
capabilities to confront North Korea while the North ignores the South and insists on dealing only with the United States,” he added. AGENCIES