Tillerson, Mattis insist military options remain for N. Korea

WASHINGTON -- America's diplomatic and defense chiefs sought Thursday to reinforce the threat of possible U.S. military action against North Korea after President Donald Trump's top strategist essentially called the commander-in-chief's warnings a bluff.

After security talks with close ally Japan, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stressed the U.S. seeks a peaceful solution to the standoff over North Korea's nuclear-weapons program.

But he said a U.S.-led campaign of economic pressure and diplomacy needs to be backed by potential military consequences.

Washington is "prepared militarily" to respond if necessary, he said.

Tillerson spoke after he and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis held annual security talks with Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera and Foreign Minister Taro Kono at the State Department. Much of the discussion focused on North Korea, which also poses a threat to Japan.

Neither Tillerson nor Mattis responded directly to strategist Steve Bannon's argument in an interview published Wednesday that there's no military solution to the North Korean threat. But both Cabinet members sought to rebut the claim.

"In close collaboration with our allies, there are strong military consequences if DPRK initiates hostilities," Mattis said, referring to an abbreviation of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

North Korea's missile launches "must stop immediately," Tillerson said.

Given the magnitude of the threat posed by the North's weapons development, he said any diplomatic effort "has to be backed by a strong military consequence if North Korea chooses wrongly."

"That is the message the president has wanted to send to the leadership of North Korea," Tillerson said, "to remind the regime of what the consequences for them would be if they chose to carry out those threats."

Trump last week pledged to answer North Korean aggression with "fire and fury." He later tweeted a military solution was "locked and loaded" after leader Kim Jong Un was said to be considering a launch of missiles into waters near the U.S. Pacific island of Guam.

Tensions have eased somewhat since North Korea said Kim doesn't plan to fire the missiles immediately. But fears of conflict remain as the U.S. and South Korea next week begin military drills the North views as preparation for invasion and as Washington seeks to stop the North's progress toward having a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike the continental United States.