PRESS RELEASE

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Pence Takes Belligerent but ‘Non-Military’ Stance on North Korea

April 18, 2017 (EIRNS)—Vice President Mike Pence, while in South Korea, yesterday, where he visited the Demilitarized Zone among other places, issued fresh warnings against Pyongyang, which were met with equally belligerent language from North Korea. However, according to reported remarks by Pence at various stops, the Trump Administration is holding off from extreme action, and looking to China, too.

"There’s a lot of economic and political pressure points that I think China can utilize," White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters yesterday.

Pence, himself, indicated that the administration is looking for a non-military way out of the crisis.

"The era of strategic patience is over, and while all options are on the table, President Trump is determined to work closely with Japan, with South Korea, with all our allies in the region and with China to achieve a peaceable resolution and the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,"

he said this morning in Tokyo, before having lunch with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Meanwhile, the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Carl Vinson continues on its way to Korean waters. However, contrary to earlier news hype that suggested that it was ready to launch air strikes against North Korea, it is at least a week’s sailing time away, having passed north through the Sunda Strait in Indonesia, some 3,500 miles south of the Korean Peninsula, on April 15. There is expectation that the strike group may arrive in the vicinity of the Korean Peninsula around April 25.