North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes represent a threat to the whole of the international community, Prime Minister Theresa May has told her Cabinet.
Speaking to senior Government ministers at their first meeting after Parliament’s summer break, Mrs May vowed that Britain would continue to work with international partners to put pressure on Pyongyang to turn away from its current course.
Her comments came as North Korea’s ambassador in London, Choe Il, was summoned to the Foreign Office for a dressing down from Asia minister Mark Field over last weekend’s detonation of a hydrogen bomb, which was the most powerful weapon yet tested by the regime of dictator Kim Jong Un.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is due to brief MPs on the escalating tensions in an oral statement to the House of Commons on Tuesday afternoon.
In a warning to Pyongyang, South Korea has conducted military exercises involving warships, F-15 fighter jets and land-based ballistic missiles simulating an attack on North Korea’s nuclear test site.
PA Graphic
And at an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Monday, US Ambassador Nikki Haley said the time had come for the Security Council to adopt the strongest diplomatic measures.
The North’s actions suggested that leader Kim Jong Un was “begging for war”, she said, warning: “Enough is enough. War is never something the United States wants. We don’t want it now. But our country’s patience is not unlimited.”
Seoul has continued its displays of military capability (South Korea Defence Ministry via AP)
Downing Street has stressed Britain’s “overwhelming” preference for a peaceful diplomatic resolution to the crisis.
Mrs May’s official spokesman said the PM had told Cabinet that the North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile programmes “threaten the whole of the international community”.
“She said the UK would continue to work with the international community to increase pressure on the North Korean leadership to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes,” said the spokesman.
Former foreign secretary Lord Hague has cautioned that US president Donald Trump’s threats of “fire and fury” will not deter Mr Kim from continuing with his nuclear programme.
Lord Hague said there are no sanctions that will deter Kim Jong Un (Dan Kitwood/PA)
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Lord Hague said: “There are no sanctions that will deter him… necessary as they are to demonstrate international disapproval.
“Nor will threatening ‘fire and fury’ or saying ‘talking is not the answer’ as President Trump did, because Kim will calculate that the US will not start a war that could be so catastrophic all round, and the stronger he gets the less likely they will be to do so.”
He added: “It would be worth the White House asking China if they are doing everything possible, with their vast intelligence-gathering power in the Asia Pacific region, to find any network helping North Korea to defy the rest of the planet.
“In the absence of that, or some other initiative from Beijing to stop the progress of Kim’s plans, the world will need to move from preventing his nuclear aspirations to containing them.”
Fellow former foreign secretary Lord David Owen said that the US should consider using devastating weapons nicknamed The Mother of All Bombs (MOAB) which have only previously been deployed against Islamic State militants.
“Perhaps initially using the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bombs on all nuclear sites will suffice, leaving nuclear bombs as a last resort only if South Korea is attacked,” Lord Owen wrote in the Mirror.
“These MOAB bombs (also known as Mother of All Bombs) were used for the first time ever in April against an Isis cave complex in Afghanistan. It is an horrendous choice the US is facing.”
In a tweet, Mr Trump said: “I am allowing Japan and South Korea to buy a substantially increased amount of highly sophisticated military equipment from the United States.”