As the US and North Korea traded verbal barbs, Washington’s allies in the region risked angering China by dismissing the prospect of dialogue with the regime. “We must make North Korea abandon all nuclear and ballistic missile programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner. What is needed to do is not dialogue, but pressure,” said Abe, who devoted his entire speech to North Korea. “For North Korea, dialogue was instead the best means of deceiving us and buying time. In what hope of success are we now repeating the very same failure a third time?”How has North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme progressed this year?

Source: The Guardian September 21, 2017 03:36 UTC