Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov yesterday said that the US would not carry out a strike on North Korea because it knows Pyongyang has nuclear bombs.
“The Americans won’t carry out a strike on [North] Korea because it’s not that they suspect, they know for sure that it has nuclear bombs,” Lavrov said in an interview with Russia’s NTV television that aired yesterday.
“I’m not defending North Korea, I’m just saying that almost everyone agrees with such an analysis,” he said.
Photo: AFP / KCNA via KNS
Lavrov said the crisis can only be resolved with a softer approach.
“Only with caresses, suggestion and persuasion,” Lavrov said, when asked how.
He said that if US did not take the same approach, “we could drop into a very unpredictable nosedive and tens if not hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens of South Korea, but also North Korea, of course, and Japan will suffer — and Russia and China are nearby.”
The interview aired after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was “deeply concerned” at the escalation of tensions.
Peskov also criticized what he called “an exchange of rather rude statements replete with threats.”
The Russian comments came after US bombers and fighter escorts on Saturday flew to the farthest point north of the border between the two Koreas by any such US aircraft this century.
The Pentagon said the mission in international airspace showed how seriously US President Donald Trump takes North Korea’s “reckless behavior.”
“This mission is a demonstration of US resolve and a clear message that the president has many military options to defeat any threat,” US Department of Defense spokesman Dana White said in a statement.
“North Korea’s weapons program is a grave threat to the Asia-Pacific region and the entire international community. We are prepared to use the full range of military capabilities to defend the US homeland,” she said.
The Pentagon said B-1B bombers from Guam, along with F-15C Eagle fighter escorts from Okinawa, flew in international airspace over waters east of North Korea on Saturday.
B-1 bombers are no longer part of the US nuclear force, but they are capable of dropping large numbers of conventional bombs.
The US Pacific Command would not be more specific about how many years it had been since US bombers and fighters had flown that far north of the DMZ, but a spokesman, Navy Commander Dave Benham, said that this century “encompasses the period North Korea has been testing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.”
At the UN on Saturday, North Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Ri Yong-ho said his country’s nuclear force is “to all intents and purposes, a war deterrent for putting an end to nuclear threat of the US and for preventing its military invasion, and our ultimate goal is to establish the balance of power with the US.”
Trump responded on Saturday night by tweeting: “Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!”
Additional reporting by AP
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique