CIA Chief: North Korea Aims to Become a Definitive Threat

Mike Pompeo, the head of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), warned on Tuesday, January 23, that the leader of North Korea is not only seeking to demonstrate power to maintain the regime but is also dissatisfied with merely a 'successful missile test' and ultimately aims to unify the two Koreas. According to Mr. Pompeo, Kim Jong-un is ultimately seeking the 'capability to launch multiple missiles simultaneously' and wants to elevate from a 'hypothetical threat' to a 'definitive threat.' According to Agence France-Presse, Mr. Pompeo noted in his speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank affiliated with American conservatives, that 'in his opinion,' the threat from Pyongyang to the U.S. is not urgent. Since Donald Trump took office in the White House a year ago, there has been a verbal and power struggle between North Korea on one side and the United States and its allies on the other. In this past year, North Korea has conducted several missile tests while witnessing military maneuvers by the U.S., South Korea, and Japan in waters close to it. Meanwhile, new sanctions have been approved and implemented against Pyongyang, intended to cripple the country financially and economically. Among these, foreign ministers from 20 countries agreed last week in a meeting in Vancouver, Canada, to impose further sanctions against North Korea due to its nuclear and missile programs. In this meeting, Rex Tillerson, the U.S. Secretary of State, warned that if Pyongyang is not willing to discuss abandoning its nuclear weapons program, it may face military retaliation. Now, after a year of Mike Pompeo's leadership at the CIA, he has presented his assessment of the current situation regarding North Korea in his speech on Tuesday. As tensions from North Korea's missile and nuclear activities and its disputes with the U.S. have intensified in recent months, less than two weeks ago, a false alarm sounded in Hawaii, causing panic among the island's residents and showing that people are also concerned about a missile attack from this country. According to some estimates, the new ballistic missiles tested by North Korea have a range of 'more than ten thousand kilometers.'