North Korea threatens to turn young people into ‘5 million human bullets’, as Australia vows to back the US if conflict erupts
MALCOLM Turnbull says Australia will enter the fray if North Korea and the US act on their threats and go to war.
PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull says Australia will come to the aid of the United States if North Korea attacks America.
In an interview this morning, Mr Turnbull said the US had no stronger ally than Australia.
“We have an ANZUS agreement and if there is an attack on Australia or the US then each of us will come to the other’s aid,” he told 3AW.
“Australia will come to the aid of the US just as if there was an attack on Australia, the US would come to our aid.”
How this aid manifested itself would depend on the circumstances and consultation with allies, Mr Turnbull said, adding: “in terms of defence we are joined at the hip”.
The Prime Minister said he had spoken with US Vice President Mike Pence overnight and said the administration's preferred way to resolve the situation continued to be through economic sanctions.
“But of course if North Korea decides to carry out some of its violent threats then obviously terrible consequences will follow,” Mr Turnbull said.
When asked whether he thought US President Donald Trump’s words this week had been unhelpful, Mr Turnbull said he thought the president was speaking in the language North Korean leader Kim Jong-un understands.
“Because clearly diplomatic language has not been successful,” Mr Turnbull said.
But he said the consequences of a conflict on the Korean peninsula would be shocking and would result in enormous casualties and losses.
“There’s so much to lose if we keep going down this road,” he said.
“It’s certainly the most dangerous flashpoint in the world today.”
Mr Turnbull said the idea that any American president, whether that be Donald Trump or anyone else, would tolerate a regime that had the capacity to deliver a warhead to attack an American city was “absurd”.
He said the situation would be a real test of the resolve of China, which had economic levers that if applied, could inflict economic hardship on North Korea and stop its reckless behaviour.
The Prime Minister’s remarks come as Mr Trump doubles down on his “fire and fury” comments on Tuesday, seemingly undeterred by concerns at the rising threats between the two countries.
“Frankly, the people that were questioning that statement, was it too tough? Maybe it wasn’t tough enough,” the US President told reporters.
“They’ve been doing this to our country for a long time, many years. It’s about time that somebody stuck up for the people of this country and for the people of other countries. So if anything, maybe that statement wasn’t tough enough.”
North Korea has threatened to annihilate the US, pledging to use its young people to “blow the US from this planet”.
The country’s official Korean Central News Agency released a chilling new piece of propaganda on Thursday, reporting on a mass rally held in Pyongyang’s Kim Il-sung Square.
Pyongyang City Youth League Committee first secretary Mun Chol vowed during the rally that “the young people in the country would become five million human bullets and bombs and nuclear warheads to blow the US from this planet”.
Participants at the rally held signs bearing slogans such as:
● “Strike the United States with nuclear thunderbolt”
● “Those who touch us will not escape death”
● “A revenge attack of annihilation”
● “Let’s become bullets and bombs devotedly defending respected Supreme Leader Comrade Kim Jong-un!”
● “We fully support the statement of the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] government categorically rejecting the ‘sanctions resolution’ against the DPRK!”
Workers’ Party of Korea member Kim Ki-nam also spoke at the rally, condemning the “shameless gangster-like” US and its allies for “cooking up” sanctions on the nation via the United Nations and saying it was “frightened at the might” of North Korea’s nuclear power.
“The DPRK’s access to the strongest nukes and rockets is a legitimate step to defend the destiny of the country and nation, and ensure the right to independent development,” he said.
Mr Kim said the US had falsely styled itself as the “only superpower in the world” and suggested that efforts to pressure it not to develop weapons would only encourage it further.
“Any sanctions and pressure will not browbeat the DPRK but harden its independent faith and result in increasing the might of its self-development,” he said.
“We will further increase the might of justice to wipe out the source of all injustice and evils, now that the gangster-like acts of the US have reached their height and clearly show what miserable and wretched fate those standing in the way of the DPRK will have to face.”
Mr Kim’s comments also contained an implicit threat towards US allies, such as Australia.
“The neighbouring countries which blindly follow the US as its puppets … will never be able to evade the responsibility for having coiled up the situation on the Korean Peninsula and endangered peace and security in the region,” he said.
“Though the US and the groups counting on it are getting so frantic, the DPRK remains unshaken as it is possessed of the strongest nuclear weapons and ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missiles].”
Despite the sensational language, experts have cautioned against buying into the DPRK’s propaganda.
“North Korea has resorted to aggressive rhetoric in the past,” Derek Bolton, Political Science Professor at the University of Bath told news.com.au.
“Their threats often seem very alarming, but most North Korea observers, and I’m sure diplomats, quickly learn to take threats of turning Seoul into a ‘Sea of Fire’ not too seriously. I think it is a strategy that has been used by North Korea, which is essentially an economically weak country with a fairly antiquated military, to leverage its influence and get what it wants.
Professor Bolton said what is new —and potentially very dangerous — is the participation of a US President willing to match North Korea’s threats.
“This potentially adds a much more destabilising factor into the equation. If North Korea’s actions are primarily driven by its sense of insecurity driven by a strong US military presence in Northeast Asia, the prospects of a cycle of threat and counter-threat by the US could be very dangerous.”
Tensions between North Korea and the US have reached new heights after the Trump administration sought to punish the rogue nation for its ICBM test launches via UN sanctions.
After the rogue nation reacted with renewed vitriol towards the US, President Donald Trump said any threats would be “met with fire and fury like the world has never seen”.
North Korea was undeterred by the President’s unprecedented war rhetoric, dismissing his statement as a “load of nonsense”.
It added that “only absolute force” could work on someone as “bereft of reason” as Mr Trump.
The KCNA said yesterday that Kim Jong-un was “seriously examining” a plan to launch a ballistic missile attack on Guam, an island in the Pacific Ocean that is home to strategically significant bases for the US Air Force.
Since his “fire and fury” comments on Tuesday, Mr Trump has retweeted a number of Fox News tweets that talk up the US’s military might.
"@POTUS being unpredictable is a big asset, North Korea knew exactly what President Obama was going to do."- @jessebwatters
— The Five (@TheFive) August 10, 2017
FOX NEWS ALERT: North Korea responds to U.S. with Guam attack plan as Secretary Mattis warns Kim Jung Un “he is grossly overmatched†pic.twitter.com/xAGLAIXpjn
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) August 10, 2017
US secretary of state Rex Tillerson and defence secretary Jim Mattis offered mixed messages in response to Mr Trump’s inflammatory threat to North Korea.
Mr Mattis furthered the war rhetoric, warning that North Korea’s actions could bring about the “end of its regime and the destruction of its people”, while Mr Tillerson told Americans that the threat from the isolated nation had not worsened and that they would “sleep well at night”.
Mr Tillerson added that Mr Trump was “sending a strong message to North Korea in language that Kim Jong-un can understand, because he doesn’t seem to understand diplomatic language”.
Despite the varied responses, US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert maintained that “the United States is on the same page” when it comes to North Korea.
“Whether it’s the White House, the State Department, the Department of Defence, we are speaking with one voice, and the world is in fact speaking with one voice and we saw that as it came out of the UN Security Council with the resolution that passed less than a week ago,” she told reporters on Wednesday.
“The United States along with other nations condemn North Korea for their destabilising activities they continue to take part in — two ICBM launches in less than a month’s period of time. The world remains very concerned about that.
“The United States’ pressure campaign … is working. It is ratcheting up the pressure on North Korea.”
Katter shares his hand in rolling ex-PM
The maverick elder statesman of the Australian federal parliament has detailed his role in the ousting of Julia Gillard as Prime Minister.
‘Dirty money’: Huge Chinese billionaires move
Peter Dutton has been accused of opening the backdoor to Chinese billionaires snapping up Aussie real estate under a controversial plan.
‘Stupid’: CEOs ’monumentally out of touch’
A union boss has come out swinging following reports some of Australia’s richest people want to cut penalty rates.