Beijing: North Korea's military commander has detailed plans to fire a missile at Guam by mid August after US President Donald Trump's "fire and fury" comment showed "sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason and only absolute force can work on him".
The statement released by North Korean state media on Thursday morning came hours after US Secretary of Defence James Mattis warned North Korea not to invite the destruction of its people.
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North Korea threatens Guam attack
The rouge nation announces its plan to hit waters near the tiny Pacific island 'before mid-August'.
General Mattis said the "combined allied militaries now possess the most precise, rehearsed, and robust defensive and offensive capabilities on Earth", and North Korea's capabilities were "grossly overmatched by ours".
General Kim Rak Gyom, commander of the Strategic Force of the Korean People's Army, said North Korea was examining a plan to fire four Hwasong-12 ballistic rockets as a warning to the US. A decision on whether or not to attack would be made later by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, he said.
The North Korean military statement gave unusual detail of where the rockets would cross the sky above Japan, and warned they would hit the water 30 to 40 kilometres from Guam.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had a day earlier visited Guam, and sought to assure the American people that they could sleep safely at night, in an apparent attempt to cool tensions after Mr Trump's comments at a golf resort.
China had called for both sides to step back, with China's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday evening urging "relevant parties" to avoid "escalating the situation with words or actions".
China wants the US and North Korea to return to dialogue and push for a political solution.
But General Mattis' comments, backing Mr Trump's toughened language, appear to indicate a shift in strategy from the White House in its attempt to bring North Korea to the negotiating table.
A week earlier, Mr Tillerson had pledged that the US was not seeking regime change in North Korea, and Mr Kim needed to stop his missile tests as a pre-condition for talks.
Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said it was unlikely the White House was trying a good cop/bad cop strategy.
"That would assume advance planning and I'm doubtful that Trump's statement was well considered or known in advance by his senior national security officials," she told Fairfax Media.
"Rather, it is likely that Mattis as well as Tillerson are attempting to calm the waters while not contradicting the President."
Mr Trump tweeted that he was modernising the US nuclear arsenal which was "now far stronger and more powerful than ever before" but that "hopefully we will never had to use this power".
My first order as President was to renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal. It is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 9, 2017
...Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 9, 2017
Tough new United Nations Security Council sanctions against North Korea were passed on Saturday, with the backing of China and Russia,.
North Korea complained bitterly that the trade bans that will potentially cut $US1 billion ($1.2 billion) in exports were a threat to its economy and sovereignty.
The North Korean military commander said Mr Trump's "fire and fury" comments were a "load of nonsense" and he failed to grasp the seriousness of the situation.
The official Chinese news agency Xinhua published an editorial on Thursday saying there was no room to "play with fire" on the Korean Peninsula.
"A way out of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula cannot be found in the latest exchange of tough words between Washington and Pyongyang.
"Unless there's a return to reason and a full commitment to a practical and peaceful solution, such a hostile approach will do little but make things worse."
China's foreign minister Wang Yi said on Monday that China, as North Korea's main trading partner, would pay the biggest price for the UN sanctions, but it was willing to implement them.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry said "the North's threatening words have gone too far", and called on its rogue neighbour to "make the right choice and come out to the road toward denuclearisation".
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said North Korea's provocative actions were "a clear threat to the region and the international community".
Meanwhile, a US Navy destroyer carried out a "freedom of navigation operation" on Thursday, within 12 nautical miles of an artificial island built up by China in the South China Sea, US officials told news agency Reuters.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the officials said the USS John S. McCain traveled close to Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands, in a challenge to China's territorial claims.
with Reuters
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