Two top Trump administration officials defended the White House's response to North Korea's nuclear missile program in an op-ed titled, "We're Holding Pyongyang to Account," published by The Wall Street Journal Monday.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis blame Pyongyang for ramping up "tensions between North Korea and America to levels not experienced since the Korean War."
In response, President Donald Trump's administration "is applying diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea to achieve the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and a dismantling of the regime's ballistic-missile programs. We are replacing the failed policy of ‘strategic patience,' which expedited the North Korean threat, with a new policy of strategic accountability."
The two add that "the object of our peaceful pressure campaign is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. has no interest in regime change or accelerated reunification of Korea."
South Korean President Moon Jae-in told his advisers Monday that "our top priority is the national interest of [South Korea] and our national interest lies in peace," adding that he is "confident that the US will respond to the current situation in a calm and responsible manner in line with our policy direction," according to BBC News.
He added that the Korean war "cost more than a million lives, left cities in ruins and perpetuated the division of the peninsula," and urged the North to "stop all provocations and hostile rhetoric immediately, instead of worsening the situation any further."
Mattis and Tillerson note in their op-ed that "North Korea now faces a choice. Take a new path toward peace, prosperity and international acceptance, or continue further down the dead alley of belligerence, poverty and isolation. The U.S. will aspire and work for the former, and will remain vigilant against the latter."
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