Via – The Hill
A top U.S. Air Force general on Tuesday said he expects North Korea’s “Christmas gift” to the United States to be a long-range missile test.
“What I would expect is some type of long-range ballistic missile would be the gift. It’s just a matter of does it come on Christmas Eve, does it come on Christmas Day, does it come after the New Year,” Gen. Charles Brown, commander of Pacific Air Forces and air component commander for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said at a breakfast roundtable in response to a question from The Hill.
Pressed later in the roundtable on what North Korea could do, Brown said there is a “range” of possibilities.
“I think there’s a range of things that could occur,” he told reporters. “I think there’s also the possibility that the self-imposed moratorium [on long-range tests] may go away and nothing happens right away. [North Korean leader Kim Jong Un] announces it but then doesn’t shoot.”
As diplomatic efforts at a denuclearization deal with North Korea flounder, Pyongyang recently threatened to deliver an unwelcome “Christmas gift” to the United States. North Korea has also set a year-end deadline for the U.S. to soften its negotiating stance or it will take a “new path.”
Pyongyang has not specified what the new path or Christmas gift will be, but regional experts expect it could include a return to intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) or nuclear tests.
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