The threat of nuclear war posed by North Korea
has grown to an “unprecedented” level amid escalating tensions with
the rogue
regime and now requires the U.S., Japan and South Korea to demonstrate
“different responses” to the threat, a Japanese official said Monday.
Speaking with the U.S. and South Korean
counterparts at a meeting of Asian defense chiefs in the Philippines, Japanese
Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said “(The) threat posed by North Korea has
grown to the unprecedented, critical and imminent level,” according to a Reuters report. “Therefore, we have to take calibrated and different
responses to meet with that level of threat.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had similar remarks, noting
that North Korea’s ongoing intimidations “threaten regional and global
security.”
“North Korea’s provocative
behavior is becoming worse and worse,” South Korean Defense Minister Song
Young-Moo added.
The comments among defense chiefs follows a report that North Korea’s biological weapons program could kill tens of
thousands of people and “create panic and paralyze societies.”
According to Reuters, the defense ministers
from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), highlighted the “need
to maintain peace and stability in the region” and called “for the exercise of
self-restraint and the resumption of dialogue to de-escalate tensions in the
Korean peninsula.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called
President Donald Trump a “lunatic” on Sunday for taking the U.S. and its “poor
puppet forces” straight “into ruin.”
The president last week said he would “certainly take a look” at
visiting the DMZ, or demilitarized zone, after he was invited to tour U.S. Army
installation Camp Humphreys, located south of Seoul, the South Korean capital.
U.S. Air
Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein recently said
the military branch was preparing to place its fleet of
nuclear-armed B-52 bombers on 24-hour alert status, noting that in a world
where “we’ve got folks that are talking openly about use of nuclear weapons,”
it’s important to remain alert and remain prepared.
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