NATO warns of ‘devastating consequences’ if Trump carries out a military intervention in North Korea but admits ‘the US has the right to defend itself’
Jens Stoltenberg said nobody wants military intervention in North Korea
NATO chief urged all member states to ‘push for a negotiated solution’
He added he believes the US has a right to defend itself and its allies
By SARA MALM
DAILYMAIL.COM
13 October 2017
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has warned US President Donald Trump that military intervention against North Korea would have ‘devastating consequences’.
Mr Stoltenberg, who will visit South Korea and Japan in the coming weeks as a show of support, stressed that Washington had the right to defend itself and its allies, but called for greater diplomatic efforts.
His comments came as Pyongyang made fresh threats to attack Guam with a ‘salvo of missiles’ in response to a U.S. aviation exercise over the Korean peninsula.
Kim Jong-Un ‘s government warned that a joint exercise with Japan and South Korea has ‘hardened our determination that the U.S. should be tamed with fire’.
In a statement published in North Korean state media, Pyongyang said the military drills ‘lets us take our hand closer to the ‘trigger’ for taking the toughest countermeasure’.
Mr Stoltenberg, former Prime Minister of Norway, said in an interview at NATO HQ in Brussels that he did not think anybody wants a war.
‘The use of military force will have devastating consequences, I think nobody really wants that, therefore we need to continue to push for a negotiated solution.
Trump met his national security team on Tuesday and discussed a ‘range of options’ to respond to Pyongyang’s repeated recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests.
The meeting came days after Trump, who last month threatened to ‘destroy’ North Korea, said on Twitter that years of talks with Pyongyang had achieved nothing and ‘only one thing will work’.
The United States and South Korea will kick off a major navy drill in the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea in a show of force against the North next week and there has been a flurry of military hardware movement in the region in recent days.
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