REPORT: Trump praises N.Korean leader's decision not to fire missiles towards Guam

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for a "wise" decision not to fire missiles towards the U.S. territory of Guam, which has eased escalating tension between the two countries.
 
Reclusive North Korea has made no secret of its plan to develop a missile capable of firing a nuclear warhead at the United States to counter what it perceives as constant U.S. threats of invasion.
 
Trump warned North Korea last week it would face "fire and fury" if it threatened the United States, prompting North Korea to say it was considering plans to fire missiles towards the Pacific island of Guam.
 
But North Korean media reported on Tuesday Kim had delayed the decision while he awaited to see what the United States did next.
 
"Kim Jong Un of North Korea made a very wise and well reasoned decision," Trump wrote on Twitter.
 
"The alternative would have been both catastrophic and unacceptable!"
 
North Korea's threat to fire towards Guam had prompted Trump to say earlier that the U.S. military was "locked and loaded" if North Korea acted unwisely.
 
North Korea has long ignored warnings from the West and from its lone major ally, China, to halt its nuclear and missile tests which it conducts in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
 
The United States has been hoping China can press the North to rein in its weapons programs. The top U.S. general reiterated that in talks in Beijing this week.
 
Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford told Fang Fenghui, chief of the Joint Staff Department of the People's Liberation Army, in Beijing that North Korea's weapons programs threatened the entire international community, including China.
 
"He emphasized that the U.S. and China have the same goal - a denuclearized Korean peninsula achieved through peaceful means ... North Korean actions threaten the economic and military security of China," a U.S. military spokesman said in  a statement.
 
"In the interest of regional stability, he said the U.S. views with growing urgency the need for China to increase pressure on the North Korean regime," the spokesman said.
 
"Should preferred diplomatic and economic peaceful options fail, General Dunford reiterated America's resolve to use the full range of military capabilities to defend our allies in the Republic of Korea and Japan, as well as the U.S. homeland."


REUTERS

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