TEHRAN (Iran News) – North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for his military and diplomats to prepare unspecified “offensive measures” to protect the North Korea sovereignty, the North’s state media said on Monday, before his end-of-year deadline for the US to make major concessions to salvage fragile nuclear diplomacy.

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War with North Korea comes closer as Pyongyang has promised a possible “Christmas surprise” missile test if Washington does not come to the negotiating table, noting it would not give in to the US’ pressure since it already has “nothing to lose.”

In response, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said at a press conference Friday that the United States was ready “to fight tonight.”

The Pentagon chief, however, said, “I remain hopeful that we could get the process started again and remain on the diplomatic path.”

Meanwhile, General Mark Milley, who was next to Esper, said, the US alliance with Japan and South Korea is “rock-solid,” noting, “I think it’s prepared to defend the interests of the United States, Japan, and South Korea at a moment’s notice.”

Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went on to say that “North Korea has indicated a variety of things. And I think you’re aware of all those. So we are prepared for whatever.”

“Korea is one of those places in the world where we’ve always maintained high levels of readiness.”

The negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang have been largely stalled since the collapse of a February summit in Hanoi between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The North Korean leader and Trump have already held two official meetings on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. However, their first meeting, the Singapore Summit held in June 2018, concluded with a broadly-worded agreement, and the second one, the Hanoi Summit, held in February, collapsed without an agreement.

The North has been under multiple rounds of harsh sanctions by the UN and the US over its nuclear and missile programs.

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The news agency also said that North Korea believes that the US has done a stupid thing by convening the UN Security Council, adding that it is nothing more than a political tool of US interests, Sputnik reported.

Pyongyang is ready to respond to any corresponding measure that the US chooses, the KCNA said.

“The United States said about corresponding measure at the meeting, as we have said we have nothing to lose and we are ready to respond to any corresponding measure that the US chooses,” said its state news agency KCNA citing a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

On Wednesday, US Ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft said at the UNSC meeting on non-proliferation that her country was ready to be flexible during the denuclearization talks with North Korea.

“We have not asked N. Korea to do everything before we do anything. We are prepared to be flexible, but we cannot solve this problem alone,” Craft said.

Last week, North Korea’s ambassador to the UN said that denuclearization was off the table in negotiations with the US. This prompted US President Donald Trump to urge North Korea to denuclearize in accordance with the previously made agreement.

In November, North Korea fired two short-range projectiles into the sea off its east coast, marking the fourth test of its “super-large multiple-rocket launcher.” The test came as the year-end deadline set by N. Korea for the US to show flexibility in the stalled denuclearization talks is fast-approaching.

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The five European members of the UN Security Council met on Tuesday to urge North Korea policy makers “to take concrete steps” towards giving up its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner.

That call came days after North Korea said it test-fired a new submarine-launched ballistic missile, in what was the most provocative action by North Korea since it resumed dialogue with the United States in 2018.

North Korea, as part of its efforts to sustain that dialogue, which has included three meetings between its leader, Kim Jong Un, and US President Donald Trump, has stopped testing nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

But North Korea’s foreign ministry spokesman, in a statement reported by its state KCNA news agency, raised questions about that restraint.

“There is a limit to our patience and there is no law that anything we have refrained from so far will continue indefinitely,” the spokesman said, Reuters reported.

The spokesman also denounced what he said was the UN Security Council’s unfair taking up of the issue of North Korea’s self-defense.

“The fact … Is prompting us to reconsider the crucial preemptive steps we have taken to build trust with the US.”

The spokesman did not elaborate on what preemptive steps he was referring to, but North Korean state media and officials have referred to the halting of nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests, and the return of remains of US soldiers killed in the 1950-1953 Korean War, as good-faith gestures to the United States, which it says have not been reciprocated.

The North Korean spokesman also referred to a US Air Force test of a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile this month.

The US test was “clearly carried out in order to pressure us”, the North Korean spokesman said.

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