The United States is “ready to fight tonight” in Korea if necessary, but diplomacy is still the best way to achieve denuclearization in the DPRK, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said on Thursday.

Esper’s comments are the latest from a top American official in recent days, including President Donald Trump himself, declaring that the U.S. still wants North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program — even after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un asserted, less than two days earlier, that his country has no such plans right now.

According to Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim