Eric Shawn reports: The Kim Jong Un dilemma
Judy Miller on talks, tweets, and increasing tensions.
North Korea chastised “lunatic” President Trump on Sunday for taking the United States and its “poor puppet forces” straight “into ruin,” the latest verbal tirade coming as a new report warns Kim Jong Un’s biological weapons program could kill tens of thousands of people and “create panic and paralyze societies.”
“Lunatic Trump is running headlong into ruin, taking America with him, and the poor puppet forces are following him, at the peril of their lives,” the regime’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said in an editorial. “It would be needless to regret when they are about to fall off a cliff of era, together with their master.”
The Hermit Kingdom ridiculed countries backing the U.S. as “puppet forces” that were “being treated as a street girl.”
Kim Jong-Un inspects the Jan. 18 General Machine Plant in Pyongyang, North Korea. (Reuters)
“What is ridiculous is the puppet forces' poor plight of being treated as a street girl even though they play the coquette with the U.S. and serve it with devotion," the statement read, adding that countries, including South Korea, have been “brainwashed” and are unable to think independently without the U.S.’ help.
Over the weekend, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also received an “unprecedented” letter from North Korea, issuing a blistering warning to countries following the U.S.’ mission to end the regime’s nuclear program.
“If Trump thinks he would bring the DPRK, a nuclear power, to its knees through nuclear war threat, it will be a big miscalculation" as "the DPRK has emerged as a fully-fledged nuclear power,” the letter, published by The Sydney Morning Herald, stated.
North Korea also said if Trump thought it could bring Kim Jong Un’s regime “to its knees through nuclear war threat, it will be a big miscalculation and an expression of ignorance.”
Turnbull told Melbourne Radio 3AW on Friday the letter was sent to “a lot of countries” and dismissed it as a “rant” against Trump.
The KCNA editorial and Australia letter come as a new report released by Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfar Center for Science and International Affairs detailed North Korea’s other, non-nuclear weapons, that could cause widespread devastation. The report, “North Korea’s Biological Weapons Program: The Known and Unknown,” stated the dictatorship may have “anthrax and smallpox” pathogens that could be turned into weapons.
North Korea is believed to have started its chemical and biological weapons program in the early 1960s and began possibly weaponizing biological agents in the 1980s, according to the report. However, it’s unclear if Kim and his scientists have already weaponized biological agents that could be loaded onto missiles. The ROK Defense White Paper often refers to anthrax and smallpox, leading officials to believe they are more likely to turn to those agents first.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un provides field guidance to the newly built Pyongyang Corn Processing Factory. (Reuters)
The report also stated concerns that a Pyongyang Bio-technical Institute is being used to produce “military-sized batches of biological weapons.” Photos released by North Korean state media in 2015 showed modern equipment that could convert the facility, said to be producing organic fertilizers, into one producing anthrax for weapons.
North Korea’s National Defense Commission issued a statement strongly refuting the claim that the Biotechnology Institute is an anthrax production facility, according to the study.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.