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IDF official: US-North Korea tensions could impact Israel

Increasing tensions between North Korea and the United States could have significant negative impact on Israel’s security, a senior IDF officer said.

A senior Israeli military official told reporters at a special briefing on Tuesday that rising tensions with North Korea may push the US to divert security resources from the Middle East to the Korean peninsula, which would have repercussions for Israel.

Senior US officials have made it clear that they perceive North Korea’s weapons programs to be a threat not only to its allies in the Asia-Pacific, but also to US national security.

“North Korea’s unlawful weapons programs represent a clear, grave threat to US national security,” Pentagon spokesman Gary Ross said on Sunday.

“North Korea’s unlawful weapons programs (to) represent a clear, grave threat to US national security,” he said. “We call on (North Korea) to refrain from provocative, destabilizing actions and rhetoric, and to make the strategic choice to fulfill its international obligations and commitments and return to serious talks.”

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman has even suggested that North Korea presents the greatest threat to global security.

The US for its part, has not only deployed the THAAD missile defense system to South Korea, but also the USS Michigan, a nuclear guided-missile submarine to South Korea with the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier not far behind.

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North Korea, however, has continued to remain defiant. Its Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Wednesday said that the regime’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Un, had supervised the country’s “largest-ever” live-fire drill of hundreds of artillery guns in celebration of the 85th anniversary of the founding its Korean People’s Army.

“The brave artillerymen mercilessly and satisfactorily hit the targets and the gunshots were very correct, KCNA quoted Kim Jong Un as saying, according to Reuters. “They showed well the volley of gunfire of our a-match-for-a-hundred artillery force giving merciless punishment to the hostile forces.”

By World Israel News Staff
With files from The Jerusalem Post