SEOUL: US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis on Saturday warned North Korea of a “massive military response” to any use of nuclear weapons as tensions remain sky-high ahead of Donald Trump’s visit to South Korea. “Any use of nuclear weapons by the North will be met with a massive military response, effective and overwhelming,” Mattis said, adding Washington “does not accept a nuclear North Korea.”“I cannot imagine a condition under which the United States will accept North Korea as a nuclear power,” he said. Mattis did not specify the threshold of nuclear weapon activity that would trigger a military response. Since then he has overseen four of the country’s six nuclear tests and hailed its nuclear weapons as a “treasured sword” to protect itself from potential invasion by the “imperialist enemy” the US. Growing nuclear threats by the North prompted calls by some Seoul lawmakers to deploy tactical US nuclear weapons in the South, but Song dismissed such a possibility.

Source: Manila Times October 28, 2017 06:22 UTC