People watch a television news screen showing file footage of a North Korean missile launch, at a railway station in Seoul on August 29, 2017. AFP PHOTO / JUNG Yeon-Je)
PARIS — France’s foreign minister warned Friday that North Korea could have the capacity to deliver a nuclear strike on the United States and even Europe “within months.”
Jean-Yves Le Drian called the situation following a string of missile tests by Pyongyang “extremely serious” and urged the reclusive state to turn to dialogue to ease spiraling tensions.
“We see a North Korea whose objective is to have missiles capable of transporting a nuclear weapon tomorrow,” Le Drian told RTL radio.
“In a few months, that will be a reality. At that moment, when it has the capability to hit the US, even Europe and at the very least Japan and China, with a nuclear weapon, the situation will be explosive.”
French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian arrives at the Elysee presidential palace on August 31, 2017, in Paris. (AFP/Ludovic Marin)
Early on Tuesday, North Korea fired an intermediate-range Hwasong-12 over Japan, prompting US President Donald Trump to say that “all options” were on the table in an implied threat of preemptive military action.
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This file photo taken on May 10, 2016 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un waving from a balcony of the Grand People’s Study House to participants of a military parade and mass rally on Kim Il-Sung square in Pyongyang. (AFP PHOTO / Ed Jones)
The UN Security Council denounced Pyongyang’s latest missile test, unanimously demanding a halt to its program.
Le Drian called on Pyongyang to “return to the path of negotiations” in a bid to ease tensions.
A joint mediation effort put forward by China and Russia would involve a mutual pause in both missile tests by North Korea as well as the joint South Korean-US military exercises by Seoul.
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Pyongyang has also threatened to fire rockets towards the US Pacific territory of Guam.
In July, it carried out its first two successful tests of an intercontinental-range missile, apparently bringing much of the US mainland into range.
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