While the international community is still searching for a way to solve the North Korean issue, UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson hasn’t ruled out a military solution to the conflict echoing Trump’s recent statements.
Commenting on the possibility of Washington’s “preemptive” strike on North Korea and London’s reaction to it, UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has said that it was the US president’s “duty to at least to explore those military options and keep them on the table.”
“Kim and the world need to understand that when the 45th president of the United States contemplates a regime led by a man who not only threatens to reduce New York to ‘ashes’, but who stands on the verge of acquiring the power to make good on his threat, I am afraid that the US president — whoever he or she might be — will have an absolute duty to prepare any option to keep safe not only the American people but all those who have sheltered under the American nuclear umbrella,” Johnson said, speaking at the annual Chatham House conference in London.
However, according to him, Britain hopes that the issue would be solved by diplomatic means.
“I don’t think anybody can conceivably want a military solution to this problem, and I know many who have studied the matter find it hard to see how the military solution might play out.”
The foreign secretary has expressed hope that the North Korean leader would see that the escalation of the US military presence in East Asia, in response to ongoing nuclear tests, was not in his interests. “Until he understands that, I am afraid we have no choice, collectively, but to step up the pressure on Pyongyang,” Johnson added.
“By continuing to develop nuclear capabilities, [North Korea’s leader] Kim [Jong Un] risks provoking a reaction in a region that is at once defensive and competitive, that reduces, not increases, its security and, therefore, reduces, not increases, the survival chances of the regime,” he concluded.