Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Seoul, South Korea this to deliver a message to the country’s Northern neighbors. Kerry arrived in the area Friday (April 12) warning North Korea against going forward with its threatened missile attacks.
The trip is part of the former Senator’s four-day trek through East Asia which will include a stop in China and Japan. “Neither the United State nor the Republic of Korea nor the international community, we are all united in the fact that North Korea will not be accepted as a nuclear power,” Kerry said during a press conference alongside South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se. “The rhetoric that we are hearing is simply unacceptable.”
Kerry’s words were aimed at North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s who has routinely disregarded sanctions from the United Nations barring him from testing missiles.
NBC news reports:
North Korea’s two medium-range missiles remained fueled and ready to fire on the country’s east coast Friday, U.S. military and intelligence officials said. However, there had been no heightened movement or activity by the country’s military that would suggest an imminent rocket launch.
Kerry met with South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Friday for the first of four days of talks amid speculation about North Korea’s military capabilities and uncertainty over what threat the isolated nation’s erratic leader may make next.
The South Korean president thanked Kerry for his leadership in recent weeks as North Korea has escalated its rhetoric.
“I also wish to express my appreciation for your leadership in having the recent G-8 foreign ministers meeting in London issue a stern warning to North Korea,” Park told Kerry through an interpreter. “I also wish to say given the escalating tensions on the peninsula, your visit will certainly showcase how closely we are coordinating our efforts.”
John Everard, a former British ambassador to North Korea, said Pyongyang was going to have to make a decision whether to fire or not fire their missiles soon.
Jong Un took office after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il in 2011.
The Defense Intelligent Agency concluded with “moderate confidence” that the young dictator is actually harboring a nuclear weapon small enough to sit atop a missile.
