THE TOP US DIPLOMAT SAYS US-RUSSIA TIES COULD STILL GET WORSE

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson promised Tuesday that the United States is not trying to topple Kim Jong-Un's North Korean regime, but warned it must halt its nuclear missile program.

Briefing reporters on diplomatic efforts to pressure Pyongyang, Tillerson said Washington would be willing to talk to the North if its leaders accept that they must disarm.

"We don't think having a dialogue where the North Koreans come to the table assuming they're going to maintain their nuclear weapons is productive," he warned.

But he sought to reassure the isolated authoritarian regime that it does not need a nuclear arsenal to defend itself from a US attack.

"We do not see a regime change. We do not seek the collapse of the regime. We do not seek an accelerated reunification of the peninsula," he promised.

"We do not seek an excuse to send our military north of the 38th parallel. And we're trying to convey that to the North Koreans.

"We are not your enemy. We're not your threat, but you are presenting an unacceptable threat to us, and we have to respond."

US President Donald Trump has demanded that China, North Korea's neighbor and biggest trade partner, rein in its nuclear ambitions -- angrily tweeting over the weekend that Beijing is not doing enough.

Last week, Kim boasted that North Korea could now strike any target in the United States after carrying out its latest intercontinental ballistic missile test.

Republican foreign policy hawk Senator Lindsey Graham said Trump is ready to launch a devastating military strike if diplomacy fails to stop the nuclear missile threat.

Amid the tensions, the US military yesterday conducted a test of an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile, officials said, just days after North Korea conducted its own ICBM launch.

The Minuteman III missile went up at 2:01am local California time, the Air Force Global Strike Command said. The ICBM arced into the night sky from Vandenberg Air Force Base in southern California and traveled approximately 4,200 miles to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

On Ties with Russia, Tillerson said he will meet with his Russian opposite number Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov over the weekend, but warned ties could still get worse.

Some in Moscow and Washington had hoped relations between the former Cold War foes might improve under US President Donald Trump, who has had warm words for President Vladimir Putin. But the great power rivals remain divided over Russia's intervention in Ukraine, US sanctions against Kremlin allies and Moscow's support for Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime.