Tension has soared on the peninsula following a series of weapons tests by North Korea and a string of increasingly bellicose exchanges between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump, in a speech last month at the United Nations, threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea if necessary to defend itself and allies and called the North’s leader a “rocket man” on a suicide mission. Choe Son-hui, director-general of the North American department of North Korea’s foreign ministry, told a non-proliferation conference in Moscow Washington would “have to put up” with North Korea’s nuclear status, RIA reported. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, addressing the same conference earlier on Friday, urged world powers to get behind a joint Russian-Chinese roadmap for settling the crisis over North Korea’s weapons program. The plan proposes a moratorium on North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons tests, while South Korea and the United States suspend holding military exercises.

Source: bd News24 October 20, 2017 14:37 UTC