Leaked letter reveals North Korea's plea for Australia to dump Trump
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has revealed North Korea's letter to the Australian government, urging the country to turn away from a “heinous and reckless” Trump administration.
Fairfax Media reports that Ms Bishop confirmed the September 28 letter from North Korea's Foreign Affairs Committee arrived via the country's Jakarta embassy.
The letter lashes US President Donald Trump's nuclear threats, saying his approach to foreign policy is "the height of American way of thinking that it is the best if the US is well-off at the expense of the whole world".
"If Trump thinks that he would bring the [Democratic People's Republic of Korea], a nuclear power, to its knees through nuclear war threat, it will be a big miscalculation and an expression of ignorance," the letter reads.
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North Korea believes countries "loving independence, peace and justice" will be vigilant "against the heinous and reckless moves of the Trump administration trying to drive the world into a horrible nuclear disaster".
Ms Bishop told Fairfax it was the first time Australia had received a letter from North Korea, which typically communicates through its state-run news agency KCNA, as it did on the weekend.
On Saturday, Pyongyang, via KCNA, again called out Australia for its outspokenness in calling for an end to its nuclear weapons program, warning it if it continues Australia "will not be able to avoid a disaster".
At the time Ms Bishop, who was in South Korea with Defence Minister Marise Payne for talks with their South Korean counterparts, hit back and said Australia was not a "primary target".
"North Korea's threats only strengthen our resolve to find a peaceful solution to the rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula caused entirely by North Korea's illegal, threatening and provocative behaviour," Ms Bishop told reporters in Sydney on Sunday.
