Alwaght- US President Donald Trump threatened on Tuesday that all options are on the table for Washington to respond to North Korea’s firing of a ballistic missile over Japan.
Trump, who has vowed not to let North Korea develop nuclear missiles that can hit the mainland United States, said the world had received North Korea’s latest message “loud and clear”.
“Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime’s isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table,” Trump said in a statement.
The Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, had earlier denounced the launch as an “unprecedented and grave threat” to the country’s security. In a 40-minute phone call with Trump, the two agreed to call for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the situation.
The missile, thought to be a new intermediate-range Hwasong-12, flew over Hokkaido and landed in the Pacific about 1,180km east of the northern Japanese island, South Korean and Japanese officials said.
The Hwasong-12 is the same type of missile North Korea recently threatened to launch towards Guam.
Tuesday’s launch may have been a reaction towards provocative military drills being carried out by US and South Korean troops.
Seoul and Washington claim their drills are an opportunity for the allies to improve their defensive capabilities but Pyongyang routinely denounces them as a dress rehearsal for war against North Korea.
On Tuesday North Korea’s ambassador to the UN said the joint exercises were driving the peninsula towards “an extreme level of explosion”.
“Now that the US has openly declared its hostile intention towards the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, by waging aggressive joint military exercises despite repeated warnings … my country has every reason to respond with tough counter-measures as an exercise of its right to self-defense,” Han Tae Song told the UN conference on disarmament in Geneva.
