Trump considers options to denuclearize North Korea

As the US aircraft carrier group sailed to the Korean peninsula, President Donald Trump asked his team to draw up plans to eliminate the nuclear threat from Pyongyang, according to AFP on April 10.

US aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson - Photo: CNA

"Previous presidents and Mr. Trump have agreed that the threat is unacceptable and that the Korean peninsula must be denuclearized. He has asked his advisers to prepare all possibilities to eliminate that threat," AFP quoted national security adviser Adviser HR McMaster as saying.

The aircraft carrier deployment has stirred tensions on the Korean peninsula.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also affirmed on April 9 that this move is not aimed at overthrowing leader Kim Jong Un. Mr. Tillerson reiterated that the US hopes China will do more to deter its neighbor, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"I think we need to give them more time to act," the US secretary of state said.

Earlier, the spokesman of the US Pacific Command (USPC), Lieutenant Colonel Dave Benham, said on April 8 that the USPC had ordered the Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group to depart from Singapore and head north to the Western Pacific region, near the Korean Peninsula. Carl Vinson is a US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

The move comes amid escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula after Pyongyang test-fired a ballistic missile on April 5. However, it has received many reactions. Chairman of the Defense and Security Committee of the Russian Federation Council, Victor Ozerov, said that the US deployment of an aircraft carrier group near the Korean peninsula could cause Pyongyang to react "unthinkingly".

According to Tuoi Tre