United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday said the US is not seeking a regime change in North Korea and is not the enemy of the Kim Jong-un led state, the BBC reported. He added that the US would like a dialogue with North Korea at some point.
“We are not your enemy,” said Tillerson. “We are not your threat but you are presenting an unacceptable threat to us and we have to respond.”
Referring to the border between the Koreas, Tillerson said, “We do not seek a regime change, we do not seek the collapse of the regime, we do not seek an accelerated reunification of the peninsula, we do not seek an excuse to send our military north of the 38th parallel.”
Meanwhile, a Republican senator claimed that President Donald Trump had told him that the US would go to war with North Korea if it continued its missile programme.
On Friday, the Pentagon said that it had detected what it called a ballistic missile launch from North Korea. North Korea on Saturday had confirmed the launch of the missile, saying it was a stern warning for the US. Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un had said the missile showed that all of the US was within striking distance. Experts had said the weapon was capable of hitting Los Angeles and other US cities.
The United States on Sunday had flown two supersonic bombers over the ocean peninsula. The B-1B bombers were accompanied by South Korean fighter jets that conducted the bilateral mission for almost 10 hours.
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