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US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (left) walks to the podium to begin a joint press conference with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono following the US-Japan Security Consultative Committee Meeting that also included Defense Secretary James Mattis and Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera in Washington on Aug. 17. (Washington

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared on Aug. 17 that the North Korean policy statement that he and US Secretary of Defense James Mattis gave the press on Aug. 13 had “been endorsed” by US President Donald Trump. The two secretaries printed a column in the Wall Street Journal announcing their willingness to negotiate with North Korea and expressing their lack of interest in bringing about regime change in North Korea or accelerating the unification of the Korean Peninsula.

During a press conference held at the office of the State Department after the first security consultation between the US and Japan’s top diplomats and defense officials to be held since Trump took office, Tillerson said the aim of US pressure and sanctions “is to cause them [North Korea] to want to engage in talks.”

“On North Korea, towards its denuclearization, we [the US and Japan] agreed we would ramp up effective pressure. We will call on China to take specific measures to make North Korea change its behavior,” Tillerson said. The Trump administration’s campaign to apply pressure on North Korea differs from that of previous administrations in three respects, Tillerson said: international unity, the level of Chinese cooperation, and the intensity of the pressure.

“Any diplomatic effort in any situation where you have this level of threat that we’re confronted with…has to be backed by a strong military consequence if North Korea chooses wrongly,” Tillerson said.

“We will deter and, if necessary, defeat any threat. Any initiation of hostilities will be met with an effective and overwhelming response,” Mattis warned during the same press conference. “In the event of a missile launch towards the territory of Japan, Guam, United States, Korea, we would take immediate, specific actions to take it down.” Mattis’s remarks imply that the US will not take preemptive military action against North Korea, but that it would have no choice but to respond with force if the US or its allies are attacked. The reference to “taking down” a missile is thought to signify intercepting a missile using the missile defense system.

In a statement released to the press on Aug. 17, the White House announced that Trump and his national security advisors would be discussing Afghanistan and other issues at Camp David, the presidential retreat, on Aug. 18, leading to speculation that the North Korean issue might come up as well.

By Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent

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