US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the United States was ready to solve the North Korean "problem" without China if necessary.
In another tweet, Trump also gave an insight into his talks with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, whom he met last week at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. When asked what message North Korea should take from the USA strike on Syria last week, he said: "If you become a threat to others, at some point a response is likely to be undertaken".
President Donald Trump's missile strike on Syria on Friday was widely interpreted as a warning to North Korea.
However, South Korean officials also hold the view that the United States would not attack North Korea unless the US military and the lives of USA citizens were at risk.
They were spurred by reports that a U.S. Navy strike group headed by the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson has been dispatched to the waters off the Korean Peninsula, and stories in the Japanese press that the return of the Japanese ambassador to Seoul was aimed at facilitating the evacuation of Japanese citizens in case of a war.
However, the ministry's spokesman Moon Sang-gyun said in a briefing Tuesday that any military actions will be "conducted under the robust South Korea-U.S. combined defense posture".
Trump has reportedly asked for-and received-a review of the full range of options for dealing with the growing nuclear threat from Pyongyang and the increasingly bellicose Kim Jong Un. In addition, no recommendations have been issued to US citizens residing in South Korea asking them to leave the nation. "U.S.A.", Trump wrote. He did not specify the means of a potential solution, but the recent US missile strike on a Syrian military airfield has raised speculation regarding the use of force.
"North Korea is looking for trouble", Trump said.
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Satellite images, meanwhile, suggests the North could be preparing to launch another round of tests to mark the birth anniversary on Saturday of the late supreme leader, Kim Il-Sung.
North Korea remains technically at war with the United States and its ally South Korea after the 1950-1953 Korean conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Thae Yong-ho, the former North Korean deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom who defected to South Korea previous year, has testified that the North Korean regime is under enormous strain.
"The Chinese have taken a tougher approach on North Korea recently", he told BBC Radio Four's Today programme. "She operates freely up and down the Pacific", said Mattis of the Vinson, implying the imposing carrier would send a message to North Korea and other actors in the region.
According to the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper, a statement for North Korea's Foreign Ministry called the strikes against Syria "unpardonable".
Tensions have escalated after America bombed a Syrian airbase last week and deployed a US Navy strike group towards the Korean peninsula in a show of force.
While North Korea has made hyperbolic threats for decades - often in pursuit of increased foreign aid in exchange for de-escalation of tension it purposely created - its continued march toward ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads to the USA mainland has increasingly anxious US officials.
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