US. N. Korea's war of words drawing fire

Tens of thousands of North Koreans gathered for a rally at Kim Il Sung Square carrying placards and propaganda slogans as a show of support for their rejection of the United Nations' latest round of sanctions in Pyongyang, Wednesday. Propaganda signs, from left to right: “Strike the United States with nuclear thunderbolt!”; “Those who touch us will not escape death”; “A revenge attack of annihilation”. / AP-Yonhap

North Korea threatens to fire 4 missiles around Guam

By Yi Whan-woo

The international community is increasingly calling for both the United States and North Korea to refrain from threatening each other as their war of words escalate tension.

North Korea claimed Thursday that it was examining a plan to fire four Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM) into waters near the U.S. territory of Guam. The North’s state media said the country’s strategic rocket forces will report a detailed plan to leader Kim Jong-un by mid-August.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and news media from the U.S., China, the European Union (EU) and other countries have called on the two countries to stop their war of words immediately.

Some stressed dialogue, while others asked Trump to tone down his remarks and stop provoking the unpredictable North Korean leader Kim Jong-un whose regime has been accelerating its nuclear program.

Trump still stepped up his rhetoric against the North, Wednesday, tweeting that “My first order as president was to renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal.”

He added: “It is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before. Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!”

Citing Kim Rak-gyom, the commander of the Strategic Force of the Korean People’s Army, Pyongyang’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that a plan to strike Guam with Hwasong-12 IRBMs will be completed by mid-August and preparations could be completed within days.

“The secretary-general remains extremely concerned by the ongoing situation and is troubled by the increase in confrontational rhetoric,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

Russian Ambassador to the U.N. Vassily Nebenzia said he hopes Washington “keeps calm and refrains from any moves that would provoke another party to actions that might be dangerous.”

Nebenzia called for dialogue to ease tensions, saying, “A military solution is not an option anyway.”

China renewed its call to resolve the North Korea nuclear crisis through dialogue. In a statement released Wednesday, its foreign ministry called on the U.S. and the North to “avoid the possibility of intensifying conflict or escalating the situation with words or actions.”

Catherine Ray, the EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini’s spokeswoman, said that the latest developments are “of great concern to the EU” and that peace and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula “must be achieved through peaceful means.”

“That excludes military action,” Ray said on behalf of Mogherini.

Describing the U.S-North Korea showdown as “rhetorical escalation,” German foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said his country calls on all parties to show “restraint,”

In the U.S., Trump was criticized for his “inflammatory” remarks toward the Kim regime that has customarily threatened to use military force on the U.S. and its allies.

“President Trump’s unsettling threat Tuesday aimed at North Korea was reckless and unnecessary,” the Washington Post stated in an editorial titled, “Trump’s ‘fire and fury’ threat is a rhetorical grenade.”

“In its bombast, it resembled nothing so much as Kim Jong-un’s regular denunciations of the United States, frantic and hyperbolic. Why would the president of the world’s most powerful nation want to descend to that level?” it said. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, “We should not be engaging in the same kind of blustery and provocative statements as North Korea about nuclear war.”

He warned that no one should be “tempted by false hopes that North Korea’s nuclear program can be destroyed with a single antiseptic surgical strike.”

In an interview with Politico, Leon Panetta, who served in many government posts, said “containment and deterrence” was the only strategy that can be used on North Korea and that it was time to open a dialogue with Pyongyang.

Panetta was the former White House chief of staff under the Bill Clinton administration and was also secretary of defense for former President Barack Obama. He is currently the chairman of the Panetta Institute for Public Policy.

New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English called Trump’s comments “not helpful” and that they were more likely to escalate the situation than settle it.