Kim Jong-un says he has a ‘nuclear launch button’ on his desk in threat to America

KIM Jong-un has brought in the new year with an alarming escalation in his threats against the rest of the world.

NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong-un claims to have a “nuclear launch button on his desk”.

During a televised New Year’s Day speech, the dictator said the US would never be able to start a war with the rogue nation after it had developed the ability to hit all of the American mainland with its nuclear weapons.

“The entire United States is within range of our nuclear weapons, and a nuclear button is always on my desk. This is reality, not a threat,” Kim said.

The speech is being watched closely, as Kim Jong-un followed up on promises he made during his 2017 New Year’s Day address, when he vowed to speed up the country’s nuclear weapons development.

Kim touted last year that North Korea had “entered the final stage of preparation” to test an intercontinental ballistic missile. North Korea’s 15 ballistic missile tests of 2017 focused on intermediate and long-range rockets.

Kim is also believed to have called for the mass-production of nuclear weapons and missiles and is “putting them into service”, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap.

A man watches a television news broadcast showing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's New Year's speech. Picture: AFP/Jung Yeon-Je

#BREAKING North Korean leader says nuclear launch button on his desk

— AFP news agency (@AFP) January 1, 2018

It follows news former United States UN mission spokesman Jonathan Wachtel has said that Kim would be one of the first casualties if war with the West breaks out.

Wachtel said the North Korean regime is clinging to its nuclear arsenal as a means to ensure both governance and life.

On America’s News HQ on Saturday, host Kelly Wright noted that the North Korean leader appears to be following in the governing style of deposed Libyan authoritarian Muammar Gaddafi and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.

“Both those dictators are dead,” Wachtel said, adding that neither had nukes. “Kim Jong-un knows that if war breaks out, he is one of the first casualties.”

Wachtel said Russia and China don’t like having an atomic power next to them and don’t want “all-out war”.

But, he said the incidental nuisance Pyongyang is to the US and other more regional adversaries like Japan seems not to be an issue to them.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un speaks during the conference of cell chairpersons of the ruling party in Pyongyang. Picture: Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP

He said America and its allies must remain vigilant because of the increasingly threatening rhetoric from Kim, including threats towards US island territory Guam.

Earlier this year, Guam Governor Eddie Baza Calvo told Fox & Friends that he hopes President Trump will meet any North Korean aggression with “hell and fury”.

It follows reports that North Korea “will never give up” its nuclear weapons as long as the United States and its allies continue their “blackmail and war drills” at its doorstep.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) took the often-repeated stance as it reviewed the country’s major nuclear weapons and missile tests this year.

North Korea conducted its most powerful nuclear test to date in September and launched three intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) into the sea in July and November, indicating that it is closer than ever to gaining a nuclear arsenal that could viably target mainland US.

Meanwhile, AFP reports a former top US military officer has warned that the US is now

closer than it has ever been to a nuclear war with North Korea, with “little prospect of a diplomatic solution”.

Mike Mullen, a former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, attributed the rising danger to Donald Trump’s “incredibly disruptive” presidency.

“And in my view, an incredibly dangerous climate exists out there in that uncertainty with how this all ends up,” he said on ABC’s This Week.

“One in particular that is top of the list is North Korea,” he said.

“We’re actually closer, in my view, to a nuclear war with North Korea and in that region than we have ever been.

“I don’t see the opportunities to solve this diplomatically at this particular point.”

Mr Mullen, who served as the top US military adviser to both presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama, questioned whether Trump can be constrained by US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, national security adviser H.R McMaster or White House chief of staff John Kelly.

Last week it was reported that a nuclear scientist who defected from North Korea committed suicide in a jail cell rather than return to the rogue regime.

The New York Post reports the lead researcher at the physics centre of the State Academy of Sciences in Pyongyang took poison hours before he was to be interrogated, according to Radio Free Asia.

- With Fox News, AFP and AP