Trump Says ‘All Options on Table' for North Korea
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said "all options are on the table" in response to North Korea after the Asian nation escalated tensions by firing a ballistic missile that passed over Japan.
"The world has received North Korea's latest message loud and clear: this regime has signaled its contempt for its neighbors, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior," Trump said in a statement.
Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime's isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table," he added, CNBC reported.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the missile was an unprecedented, serious and grave threat to Japan. The Japanese prime minister said he would ask the United Nations to up the pressure on Pyongyang.
Japanese broadcaster NHK reported that the Japanese government warned that a North Korean missile was headed toward the Tohoku region at the northern end of the country. NHK also reported that Japan took no action to shoot down the missile.
The Japanese broadcaster reported that the North Korean missile broke into three pieces and fell into the sea.
While the US Department of Defense said it is still assessing the missile launch, the North American Aerospace Defense Command determined that it did not pose a threat to North America.
A senior US intelligence official told NBC that this would be the first missile test to pass over Japan on a high altitude trajectory. In 1998, North Korea fired a missile through Japanese airspace.
US stock futures fell sharply after North Korea launched its missile. Dow Jones industrial average futures pulled back about 88 points, while S&P 500 futures declined 11 points.
