Visiting U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson indicated Thursday in Tokyo that Washington is ready to toughen its diplomatic approach toward North Korea, noting the futility of trying to convince it to abandon its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
"It is important to recognize that diplomatic and other efforts of the past 20 years to bring North Korea to a point of denuclearization have failed. So we have 20 years of failed approach," Tillerson said in a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida.
The U.S. provided $1.35 billion in assistance to encourage North Korea to "take a different pathway," he said. But all that encouragement "has been met with further development of nuclear capability and more missile launches. ... In the face of this ever-escalating threat, it is clear that a different approach is required."