[AP/Yonhap News Photo]
U.S. President Donald Trump said he is "totally prepared" to use military options in North Korea, although they are not preferred. Trump's remark came in response to North Korea's threat a day earlier to shoot down approaching American bombers even in international airspace.
"We are totally prepared for the second option. Not a preferred option, but if we take that option, it will be devastating -- I can tell you that -- devastating for North Korea," he said at a White House press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy Brey. "That's called the military option. If we have to take it, we will."
Trump has taken a hard-line stance toward Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, saying repeatedly that all options are on the table to deal with the recalcitrant regime.
"He's acting very badly. He's saying things that should never, ever be said," Trump said in apparent reference to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. "And we're replying to those things, but it's a reply. It's not an original statement, it's a reply." Trump added that the North Korea crisis should have been handled by past administrations, but that he'll "fix the mess." "So we'll see what happens with North Korea," he said.
(Yonhap)
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
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