MOSCOW, November 8. /TASS/. Washington has no intention of unleashing a war against Pyongyang using its regional allies, Georgy Toloraya, Director of the Russian Strategy in Asia Center at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Economics, told TASS on Wednesday.
"The Americans have no such conspiracy plans to unleash a war using other countries and gain some benefits from that," he said commenting on the potential US desire to use arms supplies to its allies in the region to draw them into its schemes to unleash an armed conflict with North Korea.
"Negotiations are still in progress on US arms supplies to its allies in the region, there are no contracts yet, everything can change many times." According to the expert, "plans to sell weapons to Washington’s regional allies should be regarded as the desire to bring its allies closer to itself and make them pay for Americans’ security, friendship and protection."
Toloraya noted that the war threat in the region is exaggerated. "I do not think the Americans are gearing up for war," he said. "The real threat from North Korea is likewise insignificant, because starting a war with the total elimination of North Korea and a sizeable part of South Korea and Japan is just irrational."
On the other hand, the probability of hostilities between the US and North Korea breaking out accidentally has grown, the expert stressed. "The risk of an accidental start of a war has certainly increased and is about three to four percent, while it was only tiny factions of one percent before tensions mounted," Toloraya said.
"Alarmist forecasts do exist, while the US already has something like betting shops regarding the likelihood of the outbreak of hostilities."
On November 6, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at a joint news conference with US President Donald Trump that Japan plans to purchase more different types of weapons from the US amid the worsening situation in the region because of North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests.