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15Sep17
North Korea's Kim vows to complete nuclear program despite sanctions
North Korea leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to reach the country's nuclear goals despite increasing international sanctions.
North Korean state news agency KCNA quoted Kim as saying that Pyongyang's goal was "to establish the equilibrium of real force with the US and make the US rulers dare not talk about military option for the DPRK (North Korea)," the BBC reported Friday.
"We should clearly show the big power chauvinists how our state attain the goal of completing its nuclear force despite their limitless sanctions and blockade," Kim said, according to KCNA.
Kim's comments came a day after U.S. and South Korean officials tracked a missile launched from North Korea's capital of Pyongyang that flew over Japan, further escalating tensions in the region.
The launch, the North's second in the past few weeks, came after fresh international sanctions were passed this week in response to Pyongyang's sixth nuclear test conducted earlier this month.
President Trump said earlier Friday that he was confident that the U.S. had "effective and overwhelming" options on North Korea.
"America and our allies will never be intimidated. We will defend our people, our nations and our civilization from all who dare to threaten our way of life," Trump told Air Force personnel at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington, D.C.
Trump's national security adviser H.R. McMaster on Friday also reaffirmed that the administration had "a military option" available for dealing with North Korea and its increasing provocations.
"For those who have said and who have been commenting on a lack of a military option, there is a military option," McMaster said at a White House briefing, adding it wasn't the administration's preferred route for dealing with the North's aggressiveness.
[Source: By Jesse Byrnes, The Hill, Washington, 15Sep17]
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