APRIL 4, 20172:36AM
“If Kim Jong-un has nuclear weapons and ICBMs, he can do anything,” Thae Yong-ho told NBC News, using the acronym for an intercontinental ballistic missile. “So, I think the world should be ready to deal with this kind of person.”
Thae, a career diplomat who defected from North Korea in August 2016, described the North Korean leader as “a man who can do anything beyond the normal imagination” and said the only way to handle him is to “eliminate Kim Jong-un from the post.”
His comments come as US President Donald Trump laid out an ultimatum for the Chinese president before their meeting later this week in Florida, warning him that if China doesn’t check North Korea, the United States will.
“Well if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. That is all I am telling you,” the president told the Financial Times in an interview published online on Sunday.
“If they do, that will be very good for China, and if they don’t, it won’t be good for anyone,” Trump added.
A defector says North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is desperate to remain in power. Picture: AFP/KCNA via KNSSource:AFP
He and Chinese President Xi Jinping will gather at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on Thursday and Friday to discuss the North Korean nuclear threat and US-China trade relations.
Thae said Kim could be provoked if the US begins military operations against the country.
“Once he sees that there is any kind of sign of a tank or an imminent threat from America, then he would use his nuclear weapons with ICBM,” he told NBC.
Thae said he wasn’t involved in the country’s missile programs, but believes it has “reached a very significant level of nuclear development.”
Experts say North Korea has been experimenting in the use of fuel to power long-range missiles and in February launched a rocket that landed in the Sea of Japan. While the country has around eight nuclear weapons, it has not show the ability to attach them to a long-range missile.
Still, US military officials are well aware of the threat North Korea poses.
“They have the nuclear capability — they’ve demonstrated that,” Admiral Scott Swift, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, told NBC. “And then, where they’re going with the miniaturisation of that, whether they can actually weaponise a missile, that’s what’s driving the current concern.”
