Diplomacy with North Korea will continue 'until the first bomb drops,' Tillerson says

WORLD / Politics

Diplomacy with North Korea will continue ‘until the first bomb drops,’ Tillerson says

The South Korean Air Force's Black Eagles aerobatic team performs during the press day of the 2017 Seoul International Aerospace and Defense Exhibition at Seoul Airport in Seongnam, South Korea, on Monday. South Korean and U.S. troops launched five days of naval drills on Monday, three days after North Korea renewed its threat to fire missiles near the American territory of Guam. | AP

By Jesse Johnson
Staff Writer

Oct 16, 2017

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said diplomatic efforts to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program “will continue until the first bomb drops,” as the U.S. and South Korean navies kicked off a massive, five-day joint military exercise Monday in the waters surrounding North Korea.

The statement by America’s top diplomat came despite a series of recent tweets by President Donald Trump that seemed to rule out diplomacy, including one that said Tillerson was “wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,” a mocking reference to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Speaking Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Tillerson was asked if Trump’s tweets had undermined any diplomatic push for solving the North crisis.