SEOUL (AFP) – US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis yesterday warned North Korea of a “massive military response” to any use of nuclear weapons as tensions remain sky-high ahead of Donald Trump’s visit to South Korea.
Pyongyang in recent months has sparked global alarm by conducting a sixth nuclear test and test-launching missiles capable of reaching the US mainland while Trump and the North’s young ruler Kim Jong-Un have traded threats of war and personal insults.
Mattis, on a trip to Seoul for annual defense talks, maintained that diplomacy remained a ‘‘preferred course of action’’ but stressed ‘‘our diplomats are most effective when backed by credible military force.’’
‘‘Make no mistake – any attack on the United States or our allies will be defeated,’’ Mattis said at a joint press conference with his South Korean counterpart Song Young-Moo.
‘‘Any use of nuclear weapons by the North will be met with a massive military response, effective and overwhelming,’’ Mattis said, adding Washington ‘‘does not accept a nuclear North Korea.’’
‘‘I cannot imagine a condition under which the United States will accept North Korea as a nuclear power,’’ he said.
Mattis did not specify the threshold of nuclear weapon activity that would trigger a military response. Pyongyang’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong-Ho said on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last month that his country could test a nuclear bomb over the Pacific.
But Mattis said Pyongyang should ‘’harbor no illusion,’’ saying the isolated state is militarily ‘‘overmatched’’ by the US and South Korea – a key ally of Washington that hosts 28,500 US troops.
