Mattis: threat of nuclear attack by North Korea ‘accelerating’

US Defence Secretary James Mattis said on Saturday that the threat of a nuclear missile attack by North Korea is accelerating.

In remarks in Seoul with South Korean Defence Minister Song Young-moo at his side, Mattis accused the North of illegal and unnecessary missile and nuclear programmes – and vowed to defeat any attack.

Mattis said the North engages in “over-the-top rhetoric” and behaviour and the US will never accept a nuclear North.

He said regardless of what the North might try, it is overmatched by the firepower and cohesiveness of the decades-old US-South Korean alliance.

“North Korea has accelerated the threat that it poses to its neighbours and the world through its illegal and unnecessary missile and nuclear weapons programmes,” he said, adding that US-South Korean military and diplomatic collaboration thus has taken on “a new urgency”.