North Korea rejects diplomacy with US for now, source says

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North Korea is not ruling out diplomacy, but "before we can engage in diplomacy with the Trump administration, we want to send a clear message that the DPRK has a reliable defensive and offensive capability to counter any aggression from the United States," the official said.

The comments offer a sobering challenge to the US and the Trump administration which has offered mixed messages regarding diplomatic efforts with North Korea.

White House chief of staff John Kelly said last week that Americans should be concerned about North Korea's ability to reach the United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile, cryptically telling reporters that if the threat grows "beyond where it is today, well, let's hope that diplomacy works."

Significantly, Kelly noted that Pyongyang "is developing a pretty good nuclear re-entry vehicle."

For a missile to successfully strike a target it would have to re-enter the earth's atmosphere without breaking up.

Kelly's comments seem to indicate that the US believes that North Korea is close to achieving what would be a key breakthrough for their missile program.

The North Korean official told CNN that two additional steps are needed to achieve its goal of a reliable ICBM.

One step is an above-ground nuclear detonation, like the kind North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho threatened at the United Nations last month when he suggested leader Kim Jong Un was considering detonating "an unprecedented scale hydrogen bomb" over the Pacific after Trump threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea.

The other step is the "testing of a long-range ICBM capable of reaching Guam - and even further," the official said.

Last week, North Korean state media renewed a threat to launch missiles toward the US territory of Guam, warning that "reckless moves" by the US would compel Pyongyang to take action.

North Korea first said it was examining a plan to target the Pacific island in August after Trump warned the isolated regime would "face fire and fury like the world has never seen" following a US intelligence assessment that North Korea had produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead.

Both steps are necessary for the DPRK to send that "clear message" to the Trump administration that it possesses an effective nuclear deterrent, the North Korean official said on Monday.

The official added that one or both of these tests could possibly be timed to coincide with the US-South Korea joint naval drills, which began Monday and will last for ten days, or could possibly coincide with Trump's visit to Asia next month.

Joint military exercises are particularly infuriating to Pyongyang. The North Korean government views them as a dress rehearsal for an invasion -- even as the US insists they are purely defensive in nature.

The US will practice evacuating civilians from South Korea in its annual Courageous Channel training exercise later this month -- a routinely scheduled exercise that "prepares service members and their families to respond to a wide...

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