CHINA SAYS “HIT THE BRAKES” As North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appears to have stepped back from his threat to fire missiles toward Guam, China today is reportedly urging everyone to back off the inflammatory rhetoric. The plea to tone down the verbal threats came in a phone conversation between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, according to a statement posted on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s website, as reported by the AP. “The most important task at hand is for the U.S. and North Korea to ‘hit the brakes’ on their mutual needling of each other with words and actions, to lower the temperature of the tense situation and prevent the emergence of an ‘August crisis,’ ” Wang was quoted as saying.
CONDITIONS FOR TALKS: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is reiterating that the Trump administration will begin a dialogue with Kim only after the North Korean dictator stops testing missiles and taking other provocative actions. “We continue to be interested in finding a way to get to dialogue, but that’s up to him,” Tillerson said at the State Department yesterday.
