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The Latest: WH aide muses on NKorea’s motivations

FILE - In this April 27, 2017, file photo, U.S. Army soldiers install the missile defense system called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, at a golf course in Seongju, South Korea. The THAAD system is now operating and can now defend against North Korean missiles, a South Korean official said Tuesday, May 2, 2017. (Shon Hyung-joo/Yonhap via AP, File) FILE - In this April 27, 2017, file photo, U.S. Army soldiers install the missile defense system called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, at a golf course in Seongju, South Korea. The THAAD system is now operating and can now defend against North Korean missiles, a South Korean official said Tuesday, May 2, 2017. (Shon Hyung-joo/Yonhap via AP, File)

By Associated Press May 2, 2017 1 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Latest on the President Donald Trump and North Korea (all times local):

1 p.m.

A senior White House official says North Korea may want nuclear weapons less as a deterrent than as a means to attempt a take-over of South Korea and coerce the U.S. into abandoning its close ally.

Matt Pottinger is senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council. Speaking at conference Tuesday, he ruminated about North Korea’s possible motivations for building “an arsenal of the worst weapons in the world.”

He said there may be some truth that it wants a nuclear deterrent to protect the communist regime, but its conventional military already serves that function.

Pottinger said there were other “disturbing” explanations: that it wants the weapons “as an instrument of blackmail to achieve other goals, even including perhaps coercive reunification of the Korean Peninsula one day.”