Top officials in the Trump administration will hold a rare classified briefing at the White House for the entire U.S. Senate on the situation in North Korea.
Officials say the briefing Wednesday will be conducted by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joe Dunford.
All 100 senators have been asked to the White House for the meeting. It is not immediately known if all senators will attend.
Rare meeting at White House
While lawmakers often receive classified briefings on Capitol Hill, it is rare for them to take place at the White House and for the entire Senate to be involved in one event.
The briefing comes at a time of growing tensions between the United States and North Korea.
U.S. President Donald Trump made separate telephone calls Monday from the White House to the leaders of Japan and China to discuss concerns about North Korea.
Trump also said Monday that the U.N. Security Council must be prepared to impose new sanctions on North Korea, while meeting with U.N. Security Council ambassadors at the White House. “The status quo in North Korea is also unacceptable,” Trump said.
“This is a real threat to the world, whether we want to talk about it or not. North Korea is a big world problem and it’s a problem that we have to finally solve,” he said.
Japanese ships join exercise
Meanwhile two Japanese destroyers joined a U.S. military exercise with the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group that is en route to the Korean peninsula region. South Korea said on Monday it was in talks with Washington about holding its own joint drills with the U.S. naval strike force.
Pyongyang responded to the approach of the U.S. naval carrier, saying “Our revolutionary forces are combat-ready to sink a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with a single strike,” according to a Sunday commentary in the Rodong Sinmun, the Workers’ Party newspaper. Such threats are common from the reclusive state.
North Korea on Tuesday celebrates the anniversary of the founding of its military, a key holiday in the country. There are concerns the communist state will celebrate the holiday with a nuclear test or an intercontinental ballistic missile.
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