President Donald Trump warned North Korea’s dictator that he would take “all necessary steps” against the hermit kingdom’s nuclear missiles.
The US President has also called on Russia and China to do more to pile on the pressure to stop Kim Jong-un’s nuclear programme.
But it has been warned that Russia and China could team up against the United States if President Trump launched a pre-emptive strike, sparking World War 3 fears.
John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations was asked on Fox Business whether it was likely the countries would try to prevent an invasion from Mr Trump.
Mr Bolton told Fox Business: “Well they may be doing something together because of their obvious geographic proximity to North Korea.
“But the odds of them doing anything together if we do use pre-emptive military force against the North Korea nuclear programme are between slim and none.”
It was reported that China and Russia teamed up on drills this week aimed at countering a North Korea or US attack.
Mr Bolton added that there was still one last diplomatic solution for China to join the US to stop Kim Jong-un.
He said: “The fact is, even in China there have been public pieces written recommending joint Chinese and American military intervention in North Korea to bring down the Kim Jong-un regime.
“I think this is a serious point here. I think there is one diplomatic play left with China to say ‘you want to get rid of the North Korea nuclear threat, the way to do that is to get rid of that regime.
“My personal solution is to merge the two Korea’s but a fallback would be China to replace it with another regime, so long as they extract, along with us, all of the nuclear capabilities.”
North Korea’s most recent missile test took place on November 29, and the regime said the Hwasong-15 missile flew 590 miles during its 53-minute flight before landing in the sea new Japan.
After the missile test Kim Jong-un declared that the North had “finally realised the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force”.
The US President has promised to “take care” of the situation as he delivered a huge warning to Kim Jong-un.
Donald Trump said: “This situation should have been taken care of long before I got into office when it was much easier to handle. But it will be taken care of. We have no choice.
“Our campaign of maximum pressure on the North Korean regime has resulted in the toughest ever sanctions. We have united our allies in an unprecedented effort to isolate North Korea, however, there is much more work to do.
“America and its allies will take all necessary steps to achieve a denuclearisation and ensure that this regime cannot threaten the world.”
