US using N Korea to maintain military presence around China: Analyst

The United States has used the North Korean nuclear program as a pretext to maintain its military presence around China, says a political analyst.

Mike Billington, editor with the Executive Intelligence Review, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Tuesday when asked about new provocative remarks by US President Donald Trump against North Korea.

Trump told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday that the US is ready to use the “full range” of capabilities, including nuclear arsenal, at its disposal in dealing with North Korea. In his earlier remarks, Trump warned that North Korea would face “fire and fury” should it continue to threaten the United States.

Billington said that the administrations of former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama had no intention of stopping North Korea’s nuclear program.

“The Bush and Obama administrations did not want to stop North Korea from building a nuclear weapon, because this justified their massive military buildup around China. This has very, very little to do with North Korea,” he said.

Some officials in the Trump administration are also pressuring the president to adopt the same policy as a means to contain China and Russia, Billington noted.

North Korea is under mounting international pressure over its missile and military nuclear programs and has been subjected to an array of United Nations sanctions. But it says it needs to continue and develop the programs as a deterrent against hostility by the US and its regional allies, including South Korea and Japan.

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“The North Koreans know full well what happened to Libya and what happened to Iraq when they gave up their weapons of mass destruction; they were bombed back to the Stone Age and their leaders were massacred,” Billington said.

“There is no way in hell that North Korea will stop its nuclear program and its missile program unless its security is guaranteed,” he added.

In order for Pyongyang to believe there will be no regime change in North Korea, he said, Trump should “carry out his commitment to working closely with Russia and China, not provocations of Russia and China.”

Last week, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un ordered the production of more rocket warheads and engines, shortly after the United States suggested that its threats of military action and sanctions were having an impact on Pyongyang’s behavior.

On Sunday, North Korean state television said Pyongyang had conducted a “successful” hydrogen bomb test, hours after two tremors were detected in the country.

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