Washington, Oct 15 (EFE).- US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Sunday that his country intends to keep negotiating a diplomatic solution with North Korea, which in recent months has carried out a series of controversial nuclear arms tests, until the Asian nation drops the first bomb.
“Those diplomatic efforts will continue until the first bomb drops,” Tillerson said in an interview this Sunday on the CNN news channel.
His statement came after Pyongyang threatened last Friday to fire missiles targeting an area close to the US island of Guam, in response to Washington’s military deployment in the region and a week after US President Donald Trump said that “only one thing will work” to put an end to the conflict, without explaining what that “one thing” was.
Tension between the two countries has grown exponentially due to the nuclear tests that North Korea has carried out in recent months, and which have been interpreted as a clear threat not only to the United States but also to its main allies in the area, South Korea and Japan.
Tillerson also referred to the suspension of the nuclear pact with Iran, about which Trump said last Friday that he is ready to scrap the deal if its defects are not corrected.
The secretary of state said he agrees with Defense Secretary James Mattis, who several times has expressed his belief that what is best for American interests is to stick to the treaty with Iran that the US signed in 2015 along with Russia, China, Germany, the UK and France.
Tillerson recalled that, in any case, Trump’s intention is not to trash the agreement, but to force an international negotiation or have a law passed by the US Congress that helps remedy its flaws.
“Let’s see if we cannot address the flaws in the agreement by staying within the agreement, working with the other signatories, working with our European friends and allies within the agreement,” Tillerson said.