- Putin Orders U.S. to Cut 755 Diplomatic Employees in Russia
The US flew two supersonic B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force on Sunday, as the US ambassador to the UN warned that China, Japan and South Korea needed to do more after Pyongyang’s latest missile tests.
North Korea said it had conducted another successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile on Friday that proved its ability to strike America’s mainland.
Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, said on Twitter on Saturday that the US was “done talking” about North Korea, which was “not only a US problem”.
“China is aware they must act,” Haley said, urging Japan and South Korea to increase pressure and calling for an international solution.
China, the North’s main ally, said it opposed North Korea’s missile launches, which it said violated UN security council resolutions designed to curb Pyongyang’s banned nuclear and missile programmes. “China hopes all parties act with caution, to prevent tensions from continuing to escalate,” its foreign ministry said on Saturday.
Early in his presidency, Trump met China’s president, Xi Jinping, and expressed hope Beijing would use its economic clout to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. But on Saturday, Trump said on Twitter he was “very disappointed in China” which profited from trade with the US but did “nothing for us with North Korea”.
The B-1B flight was a response to Friday’s missile test and North Korea’s launch of the Hwasong-14 rocket on 3 July, the Pentagon said. The bombers had taken off from a US airbase in Guam and been joined by Japanese and South Korean fighter jets during the exercise.
“North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability,” said Gen Terrence J O’Shaughnessy, the Pacific air forces commander. “If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing.”
Also on Sunday, the US Missile Defense Agency announced the US had successfully shot down a medium-range missile in the latest test of its THAAD missile defence programme, which is designed to protect the country against potential threats from countries such as North Korea and Iran.
The test was planned before the rising tensions with North Korea and involved a medium-range missile, not the long-range types being tested by the North Koreans.
In the meantime, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that he was ordering the United States to reduce its diplomatic staff in the country by 755.
In an interview with the state-owned broadcaster Russia 24, Putin said the move was in response to “illegal restrictions” imposed by the United States. Putin claimed that more than a “thousand” U.S. diplomatic employees are in Russia, but “755 will have to cease their activities in the Russian Federation.”
Initial reports said Putin had ordered 755 Americans out of the country, but in the interview, he said only that he had ordered a reduction in staff, without saying specifically whether all of them were American nationals.
A U.S. State Department official told NBC News that the order would cut the number of diplomatic staff to 455 by Sept. 1.
“This is a regrettable and uncalled-for act,” the official said. “We are assessing the impact of such a limitation and how we will respond to it.”
MSNBC contributor Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said he didn’t believe Putin’s order targeted only U.S. diplomats. “When I was U.S. ambassador, we didn’t have that many Americans in Russia,” he said.
But McFaul called the move a “major escalation” far out of proportion with the Obama administration’s decision to expel 35 suspected Russian spies in December.
The Russian order came days after Congress passed a new round of sanctionsaimed at punishing Moscow for interfering in the United States’ presidential election and for its military aggression in Ukraine and Syria.
The bill, which also included sanctions against Iran and North Korea, passed overwhelmingly in the House and the Senate, with only five dissenting votes between them.
A provision in the veto-proof legislation would limit President Donald Trump’s ability to unilaterally lift the sanctions. On Friday, the White House said that Trump intended to sign the legislation into law.
Guardian with additional report from NBC
