Needed: Coherent US message on N Korea

US President Donald Trump's recent warning to North Korea that further provocations on its part would be met with "fire and fury like the world has never seen" has sent shock waves worldwide.

The North Korean government responded to Mr Trump's statement by threatening to direct the nation's ballistic missiles towards Guam, a US territory with a population of about 160,000 residents, and to destroy it with "enveloping fire". Indeed, this latest escalation of rhetoric between Washington and Pyongyang is quite alarming, especially when Mr Trump and his top foreign policy advisers have been sending mixed messages about Washington's approach to resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seemed to be trying to calm the diplomatic water, suggesting that Mr Trump was only trying to send "a strong message to North Korea in language that Kim Jong-un would understand". But the United States' top diplomat also insisted that "Americans should sleep well at night" and "have no concerns" about the rhetoric emanating from both Washington and Pyongyang while hailing the "unanimous UN Security Council resolution strengthening sanctions against North Korea, with China and Russia joining us".