Lord West: UK Citizens 'Should Be Advised To Leave Korean Peninsula'

Former Head of the Royal Navy has warned the Government should advise British nationals in the Korean peninsula to leave if the tensions over Kim Jong Un's nuclear programme continue to escalate.

Admiral Lord West said there was a "real risk" that tensions between the United States and North Korea could result in actual conflict resulting in an exchange of nuclear weapons which would be catastrophic for the region.  

He believes that advising UK citizens to leave the peninsula and Japan could encourage the international community to act to prevent a breakout of war.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4 he said: 

"When you start giving certain advice to your nationals people start taking notice and maybe China and others will say 'Goodness me, this is really serious'".

The current warning from the foreign office does not advise Britains to leave but that notes that tensions "remain high" for both South and North Korea.

Lord West also said he felt tensions were at their highest in the region since the end of the Korean war in 1952:

"It is extremely worrying. I think that there is a real risk - by miscalculation, probably, more than anything else - of something happening that no one intends",

"The results would be catastrophic. It would be hundreds of thousands if not millions, dying and, yes, we would be pulled into finally."

"I don't think our nation would be liable to a nuclear attack. I think any nuclear weapons would be limited to two or three, but that is enough to cause absolute untold damage because nuclear weapons should not be war-fighting weapons. They are there, I believe, to make war unthinkable."

Tensions between North Korea and the US rose following the disclosure that North Koreans had developed a nuclear warhead small enough to be fitted on a ballistic missile that could be used to attack the US mainland.

President Donald Trump responded to this by warning that the US would rain "fire and fury" on North Korea if it continued its threats.

Pyongyang responded by announcing plans to test fire a series of missiles into the waters around the US Pacific island territory of Guam where American strategic bombers are based.