North Korea Says ‘Any War Could Turn Into A Nuclear War,’ South Korea President Pleads For Restraint

In response to American officials stating that nuclear war with North Korea would never happen, Pyongyang said on Monday that any war would “only be turned into a nuclear war.” This continues a string of increasingly threatening words used by North Korea as they have revealed their capability to conduct nuclear warfare at a distance that was thought impossible until only a short time ago. The BBC reports that South Korean President Moon Jae-in is pleading with visiting United States military leaders that there must be a “diplomatic solution” to the worsening situation with North Korea.

President Moon said on monday that their “national interest lies in peace” and, addressing President Donald Trump, said that he was “confident that the US will respond to the current situation in a calm and responsible manner.”

U.S. military officials have repeatedly said that they would utilize diplomatic means before all else, but that they have the capability to respond with deadly and terrible force in the event of Pyongyang acting in aggression.

The U.N. has recently voted to impose further sanctions on North Korea, and China has stepped up its own sanctions, including the banning of a large number of goods imported from North Korea.

U.S officials have repeatedly stated that there is no threat of nuclear war with North Korea. CIA director Mike Pompeo said on Sunday that he had seen no intelligence suggesting the possibility of nuclear warfare. National security advisor H.R. McMaster echoed the statement in a separate interview the same day.

Still, North Korea has done little to stop speculation—quite the opposite. On Friday, delegates from more than 20 countries in the Korean Friendship Association arrived in Pyongyang, sparking fears of further nuclear capable missile tests.

In a related development, the New York Times that the North’s missile testing success is due to rocket engines manufactured in Ukraine during the Soviet era and illegally sold to the North by unknown parties. Ukraine denies any culpability for this sale.

The instability and chaos in post-revolution Ukraine in 2014 is likely to blame for the conditions which allowed Pyongyang to purchase the missile engines. Michael Elleman, with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that it needs to be determined if Ukraine sold the missiles to North Korea and is working with them, adding that it is “really worrying.”

On the matter of nuclear war with North Korea, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Americans should sleep soundly at night, while President Trump tweeted that the U.S. military was “fully in place, locked and loaded.”

[Featured Image by South Korean Defense Ministry/Getty Images]