United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in a rare appearance at a press briefing Tuesday, told North Korean leaders "we are not your enemy" as he called for dialogue amid rapidly rising tensions.
Tillerson said the North Korean threat "has materialized in the ways we expected it would," and that the administration has responded with "peaceful pressure," although options are limited.
"We felt the appropriate thing to do first was to seek peaceful pressure on the regime in North Korea, to have them develop a willingness to sit and talk with us and others," Tillerson said, but with the understanding "there is no future" in which North Korea possesses nuclear weapons.
Tillerson said he doesn't blame the Chinese for the situation in North Korea, but that the U.S. would seek Chinese help in achieving a dialogue with North Korea.
"We are at a bit of a pivot point" in the U.S. relationship with China, Tillerson said, adding that "we recognize conditions have changed."
On Monday, President Donald Trump uttered assurances during the start of his Cabinet meeting that the threat from North Korea will be taken care of.
"We'll handle North Korea. We're going to be able to handle them. It will be handled. We handle everything," Trump said in response to a question from a reporter.
Asked later in the day whether a U.S. response might include a first strike on North Korea, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders replied, "As we said many times before, the president's not going to broadcast any decisions, but all options are on the table."
US plans missile test
After Friday's intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test launch — the second by North Korea — the United States responded with a sudden joint ballistic missile firing exercise with South Korean forces and by flying a pair of U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers over the peninsula in a show of force.
The United States will launch an unarmed Minuteman III ICBM on Wednesday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California "to validate and verify the effectiveness, readiness and accuracy of the weapon system," according to the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command.
Tensions could escalate in August when the United States and South Korea hold an annual large-scale joint military drill, which always prompt fresh threats from North Korea.
"If you have the current tensions and pile on top of that these exercises, it's going to make for a much worse situation," said Joel Wit, a senior fellow at the U.S.-Korea Institute of Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
The South Korean president, who is on vacation, and Trump are expected to confer by telephone soon about North Korea's second purported ICBM test, which independent weapons experts have said indicates the North's rockets are capable of reaching many parts of the United States.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke with Trump on Monday. A White House statement said Trump and Abe agreed that North Korea "poses a grave and growing direct threat" to the U.S., Japan, South Korea and other countries, and they committed their governments to increasing diplomatic and economic pressure on Pyongyang.
Abe told reporters Trump vowed to take "all necessary measures" to protect the Japanese people from the North Korean threat.
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