The United States is ready to defend itself and its allies against North Korean nuclear weapons, outgoing Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“We’ve deployed missile defenses in South Korea, Japan, Guam and, of course, we have 28,500 troops there today,” he said. “North Korea’s slogan is, ‘fight tonight.’ We’re ready to defend the Korean peninsula and defend our friends and interests there.”
Carter said the U.S. would shoot down an intermediate range ballistic missile if it threatened the U.S. or one of its allies. If a test missile was on its way to the U.S. or the territory of an ally, the U.S. would intercept it, he added.
North Korea said Sunday it is capable of test launching an intercontinental ballistic missile at any time from any location. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un claimed on Jan. 1 that his country was close to launching an ICBM.
