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Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has urged the Government to stay out of any military action as the situation in North Korea deteriorates.

Writing exclusively in today’s Sunday Mirror, Mr Corbyn calls for Prime Minister Theresa May to rule out committing any of the British Armed Forces – including for joint exercises in the region.

And he called on Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un to “wind down the war of rhetoric”.

Mr Corbyn said: “In the interests of sanity and safety for the whole world, global ­pressure for dialogue and diplomacy must be overwhelming.”

(Image: Getty)

His plea came after Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Kim Jong-un’s regime was responsible for the crisis over its nuclear programme and must now “fix it”.

In a series of postings on his Twitter feed, Mr Johnson said Britain was working with the United States and allies in the region to find a diplomatic solution to the stand-off between Pyongyang and Washington.

“The North Korean regime is the cause of this problem and they must fix it,” he said.

By Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party

The threat of catastrophic nuclear conflict is once again a real possibility.

As Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un trade threats and tensions escalate, the danger is growing.

We have just marked the anniversary of the last time a nuclear bomb was used in conflict, by the US on Nagasaki in Japan 72 years ago.

Well over a hundred thousand people died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki from what were small atomic bombs.

Any nuclear conflict over North Korea today would kill millions of innocent people in the Korean peninsula and beyond, with devastating fallout in China, Japan and elsewhere.

(Image: Reuters)

Trump and Kim must immediately wind down the war of rhetoric, as the German chancellor Angela Merkel has demanded. The risks of an unintended escalation into full-blown conflict are too great for the whole world.

North Korea’s latest missile test has been rightly condemned internationally. But the war of words between Washington and Pyongyang risks derailing efforts to move towards essential de-escalation and demilitarisation.

We cannot play fast and loose with nuclear weapons and nuclear threats. Our government must press for measured responses to bring the temperature down.

Sanctions, which the UN security council stepped up on North Korea last week, will not alone resolve the tensions. Diplomacy, security guarantees, and international law are the only realistic route out of the crisis.

(Image: Reuters)

Britain can help pull this back from the brink by pushing hard for the resumption of the stalled six-party talks.

That must involve both South Korea and Japan to be effective and have the clear objective of a denuclearised Korean Peninsula.

At the six-party talks in 2007, North Korea signed an agreement to disable its nuclear weapons facilities. Ten years on, what incentive does Pyongyang have to come back to the negotiating table?

The scaling back of US and South Korean military exercises in exchange for North Korea agreeing to freeze its nuclear programme can be the basis of an offer to reopen talks, with the support of China and Russia.

North Korea cannot sustain current levels of military spending and meet its people’s basic needs.

So the chance of more open trade and agreements are another lever for de-escalation and a negotiated settlement.

(Image: Getty)

Our government must not drag our country into any military action over the Korea crisis, including joint exercises.

There can be no question of blind loyalty to the erratic and belligerent Trump administration.

US-led regime-change wars and the threat of more to come have made this crisis more dangerous and difficult to resolve.

A Labour government would be committed to achieving a nuclear-free world, as are all signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

We can only head off the spread of nuclear weapons if existing nuclear states make meaningful moves towards disarmament.

Labour’s shadow peace and disarmament minister Fabian Hamilton would be dedicated to this task.

In the interests of sanity and safety for the whole world, global pressure for dialogue and diplomacy must be overwhelming.