New Delhi:
United States may be considering the use of direct force to counter rising nuclear threat from North Korea, a report has said.
An internal White House review of strategy on North Korea includes the possibility of military force or regime change to blunt the country’s nuclear-weapons threat, Wall Street Journal reported.
This review comes at the heels of a report claiming President Donald Trump believes the "greatest immediate threat" to the US was North Korea's nuclear program.
Recent provocations from DPRK, including the ballistic missile launch in the Sea of Japan and the assassination of Kim Jong Un's estranged half-brother in Malaysia, may have provoked this shift in the policy that have many officials and US allies worried.
"North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the US It won't happen!" Trump tweeted in January. Several weeks later, North Korea conducted its missile test.
While President Donald Trump has taken steps to reassure allies that he won’t abandon agreements that have underpinned decades of US policy on Asia, his pledge that Pyongyang would be stopped from ever testing an intercontinental ballistic missile—coupled with the two-week-old strategy review—has some leaders bracing for a shift in American policy.
Chinese and North Korean officials are holding talks in Beijing, the first known high-level meeting in nearly a year, and Beijing recently curtailed coal imports from North Korea.
