President Donald Trump warned Tuesday that the United States may have to "totally destroy" North Korea if further escalation of the country's nuclear provocations forces Washington to defend itself or its allies.
"The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea," Trump said in his first general debate address at the U.N. General Assembly.
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Trump also condemned North Korea's human rights record, citing its abduction of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s, the death in June of an American university student who had been imprisoned in North Korea and the assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of the North's leader Kim Jong Un, in February in Malaysia.
"We know it kidnapped a sweet 13-year-old Japanese girl from a beach in her own country to enslave her as a language tutor for North Korea's spies," Trump said in reference to Megumi Yokota, one of the abductees who was taken from Niigata Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast while on her way home from school in 1977.
Referring to Pyongyang's "reckless pursuit" of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, Trump said Kim Jong Un -- whom he called "Rocket Man" over Pyongyang's continuing missile tests -- "is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime."
"The United States is ready, willing and able. But hopefully this will not be necessary," he said.
Following the Sept. 3 test of what North Korea said was a hydrogen bomb that can be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile, Kim was quoted by the North's state media as saying last week that Pyongyang's final goal is to achieve an "equilibrium" of military force with Washington and that efforts to complete the development of nuclear arms have entered the final phase.
Including two ICBM test launches in July, the series of weapons tests are part of North Korea's efforts to develop a nuclear-tipped missile that could reach the U.S. mainland.
Trump repeated the international community's call on North Korea to rid itself of nuclear weapons, saying denuclearization is "the only acceptable future" for the country.
"No nation on Earth has an interest in seeing this band of criminals arm itself with nuclear weapons and missiles," he said.
Trump thanked China and Russia -- two countries critics call the principal economic enablers of North Korea's nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development programs -- for backing two recent U.N. Security Council sanctions resolutions on Pyongyang.
"But we must do much more," he said. "It is time for all nations to work together to isolate the Kim regime until it ceases its hostile behavior."
In phone talks on Monday, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to "maximize pressure" on North Korea so as to curb its nuclear ambitions, according to the White House.
Trump and Xi "committed to maximizing pressure on North Korea through vigorous enforcement of United Nations Security Council resolutions," it said in a statement.
The most recent resolution, adopted in response to the North's sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3, for the first time capped oil supply to the country. It also bans North Korea from exporting textiles and calls on U.N. members not to grant work permits for North Korean laborers.
In Tuesday's address, Trump slammed Pyongyang's human rights violations, saying, "No one has shown more contempt for other nations and for the well-being of their own people than the depraved regime in North Korea."
Japan officially lists 17 citizens as abduction victims and suspects North Korea's involvement in many more disappearances. While five of the 17 were repatriated in 2002, Pyongyang maintains that eight -- including Yokota -- have died and the other four never entered the country.
The Trump administration is considering putting North Korea back on the terror list in the wake of the killing of Kim Jong Nam with the highly toxic nerve agent VX at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, according to senior administration officials.
