SEOUL: North Korea ruled out talks and threatened to increase its nuclear arsenal in a fresh warning to Donald Trump’s administration Saturday as the US President set off on a tour of Asia.
Trump departed for his first presidential trip to Asia Friday, with tensions over North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats looming large. He is due to arrive in South Korea Tuesday, after first visiting Japan.
The North’s state-run KCNA news agency said in a commentary that the US should be disabused of the “absurd idea” that Pyongyang would succumb to international sanctions and give up its nuclear weapons, adding that it is in “the final stage for completing nuclear deterrence.”
“It had better stop daydreaming of denuclearization talks with us,” said the commentary titled “Stop dreaming a daydream.”
“Our self-defensive nuclear treasure sword will be sharpened evermore unless the US hostile policy toward the DPRK is abolished once and for all,” it said, using an acronym for the official name of North Korea.
The White House said Trump will deliver a speech at South Korea’s National Assembly and urge “common resolve in the face of shared threat.”
But there is widespread concern in South Korea that the US president’s visit might worsen the situation if Trump fails to rein in his fierce rhetoric.
Trump and the North’s leader Kim Jong-Un have traded insults and threats of war in recent months.
“Because of his tendency to veer off the script, many Koreans are worried that he may let loose,” Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies said.
Some 500 protesters took to the streets in Seoul Saturday, chanting slogans and waving banners as they accused Trump of bringing the Korean peninsula to the brink of war.
“No Trump, No War,” read one of the banners, while others portrayed the US President wearing a Nazi uniform.
Nearby, a rival group of some 100 Trump supporters, including many military veterans, chanted: “Welcome to Korea, We believe in Trump.”
Trump, who dismissed direct talks with Pyongyang as “waste of time,” will meet with President Moon Jae-In, who came to power early this year advocating for engagement with Pyongyang, a stance denounced as “appeasement” by Trump.
Professor Koh Yu-Hwan at Dongguk University, a leading policy adviser to the government, said Seoul expected Trump to avoid putting Moon in a quandary by renewing pugnacious threats against the North, particularly with South Korea hosting the Winter Olympics in February next year.
Moon has had to dial back his policy of engagement with the North in the face of Pyongyang’s persistent nuclear and missile tests.
North Korea rules out negotiations as Trump heads to Asia
North Korea rules out negotiations as Trump heads to Asia
Heavy shelling, explosions spark fear along Pakistan-Afghanistan border
- Residents fear for their safety amid border clashes
- 1,500 Afghan families displaced due to heavy shelling and explosions
- Pakistan denies targeting civilians, says its strikes focus on militants
LAL PUR, Afghanistan/PESHAWAR, Pakistan: People living along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan said they were considering fleeing their homes because of heavy shelling and explosions as fighting between troops from both sides entered a seventh day on Wednesday.
The South Asian allies-turned-foes have engaged in their worst fighting in years following Pakistani airstrikes on major Afghan cities last week, increasing volatility in a region also on edge over US and Israeli strikes on Iran.
Islamabad has said its airstrikes, which have at times directly targeted the Taliban government, are aimed at ending Afghan support for militants carrying out attacks on Pakistan. The Taliban has denied aiding militant groups.
SHELLING STARTS AS VILLAGERS ARE BREAKING RAMADAN FAST
Residents of towns and villages in Pakistan’s northwest said fighting between border forces starts in the evenings, placing their homes in the line of fire, often at sunset when families are breaking their fast in the holy month of Ramadan.
“There is complete silence in the day, but the moment we sit for iftar dinner, the two sides start shelling,” Farid Khan Shinwari from Landi Kotal, a town near the Torkham border crossing, told Reuters.
“We open our fast in extremely difficult situations, as you never know when a shell can hit your house.”
Residents in the town and nearby villages said there had been heavy shelling and some explosions heard in the past few days, prompting many to flee their homes.
On the other side of the border, Afghans shared similar stories of skirmishes and families fleeing their homes.
Hundreds had been displaced to an open dirt field under makeshift tents, while others had no shelter at all. Officials say around 1,500 families have fled their homes.
Fighting along the 2,600-km (1,615-mile) border has ebbed and flowed over the week-long conflict, with both sides saying they have inflicted heavy losses on the other country and gained ground in the fighting.
Reuters has been unable to verify these accounts.
TURKEY HAS OFFERED TO MEDIATE
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif that Ankara would help reinstate a ceasefire, the Turkish Presidency said on Tuesday, as other countries that had offered to mediate have since been hit by the conflict in the Gulf.
On Wednesday, both countries reported exchanges of heavy fire, with Afghanistan’s defense ministry saying Taliban forces shot down a Pakistani drone and captured seven border posts.
A spokesperson for the ministry said 110 civilians, including 65 women and children, had been killed since the fighting began and another 123 were wounded. The United Nations mission for Afghanistan has listed 42 deaths so far.
Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar disputed both figures, saying: “Pakistan exercises great care in only targeting terrorists and support infrastructure. No civilian structures have been targeted.”
On Saturday, Pakistan struck “ammunition and critical equipment” at the Bagram air base north of Kabul, Tarar said, a key American command center through the 20-year Afghan war.
