BEIJING: Peace with North Korea is a “possibility”, America’s most senior uniformed officer said on Thursday, but warned the US has “credible, viable military options” for dealing with the errant regime.
General Joe Dunford, the Chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, also told reporters during his visit to Beijing that the US has no plans to “dial back” military exercises with South Korea, which have angered both China and North Korea.
Annual military drills involving tens of thousands of US and South Korean troops are due to begin on Monday. North Korea views such exercises as preparations to invade it.
China has urged the United States and South Korea to scrap the drills in exchange for North Korea calling a halt to its weapons programmes.
Dunford said the exercises were “not currently on the table as part of the negotiation at any level”.
“My advice to our leadership is that we not dial back our exercises. The exercises are very important to maintaining the ability of the alliance to defend itself,” Dunford said adding that, “as long as the threat in North Korea exists, we need to maintain a high state of readiness to respond to that threat.”
Dunford made the remarks on the last day of a trip to China that included a visit on Wednesday to a northern military zone near China’s border with North Korea.
“What’s unimaginable to me is not a military option,” Dunford told reporters before a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“What is unimaginable is allowing (North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un) to develop ballistic missiles with a nuclear warhead that can threaten the United States and continue to threaten the region.” In Seoul, South Korean President Moon Jae-In vowed on Thursday that “there will be no war” on the peninsula.
Dunford, who was in South Korea earlier this week and will land in Japan later to discuss tensions around North Korea’s growing weapons programme, acknowledged that a military solution would be “horrific”.
But he said it would be employed only if diplomatic and economic pressures fail to create the conditions for political dialogue.
“I do believe right now that there’s a long way to go, but we are on a path where there is a possibility — and I hope a probability that we can resolve this peacefully,” Dunford said.
On Tuesday, China, which has been accused by the US of not doing enough to rein in Kim’s authoritarian regime, started implementing a ban on North Korean imports of iron, iron ore and seafood as part of a far-reaching UN Security Council resolution passed earlier this month.
China, the North’s biggest ally, accounts for 90 per cent of its trade.
“The reports I’ve heard even since I’ve been to Beijing have been positive in terms of Chinese commitment to enforce those sanctions,” Dunford said, though he urged China on Tuesday to increase pressure on Pyongyang.
The general went against White House aide Steve Bannon’s statement in an interview published on Wednesday in which he said “there’s no military solution (to North Korea’s nuclear threats)”.
Dunford said President Donald Trump “has told us to develop credible, viable military options, and that’s exactly what we’re doing”.
“If the president comes to us with a decision to use military force, we will provide him with options.”
The US and North Korea have been engaged in heated verbal sparring since Trump warned Pyongyang that it faced “fire and fury” if it continued to threaten the US and other countries with its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
North Korea responded that it was ready to aim a missile at the American territory Guam, but it has since suspended the operation. — AFP
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