Kim shuns dialogue

So that didn't last long. It seemed like a good idea when Rex Tillerson revealed there were direct talks going on with North Korea. But apparently the North Korean guy the other end of the phone, presumably a senior flunky at the foreign ministry, showed no interest in talking. Well surprise surprise. But Tillerson should keep trying no matter what his boss, Donald J Trump says/tweets. There's no harm in having a chat, unless of course the only response from Pyongyang was: "Go to hell." Trump tweeted that Rex Tillerson was wasting his time and vowed to do what had to be done. So back to war talk then. So much for that briefest of moments when a tiny hint of hope was raised by the US secretary of state. There is a basic impasse here. Trump wants to stop North Korea's nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programme, and Kim Jong-un is determined to carry on. There's not a whisker of compromise in the air on either side. Perhaps Kim's strategy is to reject talks to start with and then come up with something that suggests a ccncessionary tone during the tenth phone call from Washington. But I fear ths is wishful thinking. Trying to persuade Kim to surrender his beloved nuclear programme is like attempting to tell Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, to abolish the Revolutionary Guard. I think Tillerson WILL carry on trying to talk to Pyongyang, that's his job after all. But if he gets nowhere and the Rocket Man, or Little Rocket Man as Trump called him today in a tweet, launches more and more longer-range ballistic missiles and carries out larger-scale nuclear tests, military action of some sort from the US will become inevitable. I reckon there's a nine-month to twelve-month window. After that, if there is no movement towards diplomacy by Kim during that time, the rockets are going to fly, but this time towards Pyongyang!