{"id":387606,"date":"2018-01-01T10:41:55","date_gmt":"2018-01-01T10:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=387606"},"modified":"2018-01-01T10:41:55","modified_gmt":"2018-01-01T10:41:55","slug":"north-koreas-kim-jong-un-issues-threats-olive-branch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=387606","title":{"rendered":"North Korea’s Kim Jong-un issues threats and olive branch"},"content":{"rendered":"

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un has said a nuclear launch button is “always on my table” and warned the US it will never be able to start a war.<\/p>\n

In a televised new year speech, he said the entire US was within range of North Korean nuclear weapons, adding: “This is reality, not a threat.”<\/p>\n

But he also offered a potential olive branch to South Korea, suggesting he was “open to dialogue”.<\/p>\n

North Korea may also send a team to the Winter Olympics in Seoul, he said.<\/p>\n

What is President Trump’s reaction?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When asked by reporters to respond to Mr Kim’s latest threats, US President Donald Trump said, “We’ll see, we’ll see”.<\/p>\n

He was speaking at the sidelines of New Year’s Eve celebrations at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.<\/p>\n

North Korea has come under increased criticism and sanctions over the past year because of its nuclear weapons programme and repeated testing of conventional missiles.<\/p>\n

North Korea has come under increased criticism and sanctions over the past year because of its nuclear weapons programme and repeated testing of conventional missiles.<\/p>\n

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It claims to have a fully deployable nuclear weapon, though there is still some international scepticism about its true capacity to carry out such an attack.<\/p>\n

In his speech, Mr Kim re-emphasised his focus on the weapons programme, but implied the country still has a few stages left to go before achieving its ambitions. North Korea must “mass-produce nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles and speed up their deployment”, he said.<\/p>\n

He also said they would not use their weapons unless they felt that peace was threatened.<\/p>\n

Thawing relations with the South?<\/strong><\/p>\n

While his language against the US remained tough, Mr Kim did not employ his typically antagonistic tone when speaking about his neighbours in South Korea.<\/p>\n

“The year 2018 is a significant year for both the North and the South, with the North marking the 70th anniversary of its birth and the South hosting the Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n

“We should melt the frozen North-South relations, thus adorning this meaningful year as a year to be specially recorded in the history of the nation,” he said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the South Korean president said their office had “always stated our willingness to talk with North Korea at anytime and anywhere”.<\/p>\n

“We hope the two Koreas will sit down and find a solution to lower tensions and establish peace on the Korean peninsula.”<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un has said a nuclear launch button is “always on my table” and warned the US it will never be able to start a war. In a televised new year speech, he said the entire US was within range of North Korean nuclear weapons, adding: “This is reality, not a threat.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":387608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[159,160],"class_list":["post-387606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-kim-jong-un","tag-north-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=387606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/387608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=387606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=387606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=387606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}