Washington would like to have DPRK dialogue

ROK media says US mulls dispatching 2 aircraft carriers

WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Tuesday that the United States would like to have a dialogue with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea at some point.

"We are not your enemy, ... but you are presenting an unacceptable threat to us, and we have to respond," said Tillerson at a news conference in Washington. "We hope that at some point they will begin to understand that, and we would like to sit and have a dialogue with them."

Tillerson also reiterated that the US seeks neither a "regime change" nor "collapse of the regime" in the DPRK.

"We do not seek an accelerated reunification of the peninsula," Tillerson said. "We do not seek an excuse to send our military north of the 38th Parallel."

Tillerson's remarks came just days after the DPRK launched its second intercontinental ballistic missile in a month.

The missile traveled about 1,000 kilometers before splashing down into the sea, Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis said in a statement.

New sanctions

The DPRK said that the firing aimed to "finally confirm the overall technological specifications of the weapon system of Hwasong-14 capable of carrying large-sized heavy nuclear warhead, including its maximum range," according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

The DPRK on Tuesday slammed the US for passing a new sanctions bill against it, state-run media reported. "The new sanctions against the DPRK, Russia and Iran which recently passed by the US Congress is prompting a growing international backlash," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

"The sanctions by the United States which are geared to 'saving the US economy' by securing the market for energy and increasing its export are encroaching upon the interests of its allies and friends without hesitation as well as its rivals," the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, Seoul-based Yonhap News Agency reported on Wednesday that Wash-ington was mulling dispatching two aircraft carriers to the Korean Peninsula in an apparent show of force following Pyongyang's launch of what it called an ICBM.

An unidentified government source of the Republic of Korea was quoted as saying the military authorities of the ROK and the US had considered the mobilization of the US aircraft carrier to the peninsula for the joint annual war games, code-named Ulchi Freedom Guardian.

The mobilization date would be moved up, before the computer-assisted simulation exercise that was scheduled to kick off on Aug 21, according to the source.

The two US aircraft carriers to be mobilized would reportedly be USS Carl Vinson and USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike groups, which were sent to the waters near the Korean Peninsula in May.

The DPRK has denounced the US-ROK war game as a dress rehearsal for northward invasion.

Xinhua

(China Daily 08/03/2017 page12)