US Navy Strike Group to Move Towards Korean Peninsula, Official Says

By Edward Helmore, Guardian UK

09 April 17

 

s the US navy deployed a strike group towards the western Pacific Ocean, to provide a presence near the Korean peninsula, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said China agrees with the Trump administration that “action has to be taken” regarding North Korea.

Tillerson told CBS’s Face the Nation, in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday, that when Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at Mar-a-Lago this week, they “had extensive discussions around the dangerous situation in North Korea”.

“President Xi clearly understands, and I think agrees, that the situation has intensified and has reached a certain level of threat that action has to be taken,” Tillerson said.

Tillerson described a “shared view and no disagreement as to how dangerous the situation has become”.

In view of the regional threat now posed by North Korean missile tests and nuclear ambitions, he said, the Chinese “do not believe the conditions are right today to engage in discussions with the government in Pyongyang”.

“We’re hopeful,” he added, “that we can work together with the Chinese to change the conditions in the minds of the DPRK leadership. And then, at that point, perhaps discussions may be useful.

“But I think there’s a shared view and no disagreement as to how dangerous the situation has become. And I think even China is beginning to recognize that this presents a threat to even to China’s interests as well.”

The Carl Vinson strike group, which includes an aircraft carrier, was first scheduled to make port calls in Australia but is now on its way from Singapore to the western Pacific ocean.

“US Pacific Command ordered the Carl Vinson strike group north as a prudent measure to maintain readiness and presence in the western Pacific,” said Commander Dave Benham, spokesman at US Pacific Command.

“The No1 threat in the region continues to be North Korea, due to its reckless, irresponsible and destabilising program of missile tests and pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability,” he said, in an unusually forceful statement.

The news followed a Friday report by NBC that the National Security Council had included the return of nuclear weapons to South Korea in options presented to President Trump for dealing with the threat posed by North Korea. Killing North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, was also presented as an option, NBC reported.

On Saturday the White House said the US president had spoken to the acting president of South Korea, Hwang Kyo-Ahn. North Korea, meanwhile, called the US missile strike on Syria on Thursday night “an intolerable act of aggression”.

The White House said on Saturday Trump spoke with Hwang about the strike in Syria, launched in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack on civilians by Bashar al-Assad’s government.

The two leaders agreed to stay in close contact, the White House said, regarding North Korea and other issues of mutual concern.

Analysts have said the Syria strike contained a clear message for Pyongyang that the US was not afraid to exercise the military option, and there had been speculation as to how the North would respond.

Trump has recently threatened unilateral action against Pyongyang if Beijing fails to help curb its neighbour’s nuclear weapons programme. Pyongyang’s response on Saturday suggested the reclusive state was determined to continue with its nuclear weapons programme.

“Swaggering as a superpower, the US has been picking only on countries without nuclear weapons and the Trump administration is no exception,” a foreign ministry spokesman said, according to the KCNA news agency.

The comments were Pyongyang’s first since Trump ordered the strikes on an airbase in Syria.

“The US missile attack against Syria is a clear and intolerable act of aggression against a sovereign state and we strongly condemn it,” KCNA quoted the spokesman as saying.

“The reality of today shows that we must stand against power with power and it proves a million times over that our decision to strengthen our nuclear deterrence has been the right choice.

“The Syria attack thoroughly reminds us the fact that it is absolutely dangerous to have any illusions about imperialism and only military power of our own will protect us from imperialistic aggression.

“We will keep bolstering our self-defensive military might in various ways in order to cope with the ever-intensifying US acts of aggression.”

The North has carried out five nuclear tests – two last year – and expert satellite imagery analysis suggests it could well be preparing for a sixth.

Pyongyang has shown no sign of reining in a missile testing programme ultimately aimed at securing the capability to deliver a nuclear warhead to the continental US.

Asked on ABC if North Korean development of an intercontinental missile would be a “red line” for Trump, Tillerson said: “If we judge that they have perfected that type of delivery system, then that becomes a very serious stage of their further development.”

He added: “With no further testing, their program does not progress and that’s what we’ve asked for before we can begin to have further talks with them.”