Biden says North Korea is top foreign policy issue

President Joe Biden says that addressing a nuclearized North Korea is his top foreign policy issue.

Biden told reporters at a Thursday news conference that North Korea violated U.N. resolutions by launching ballistic missiles and that the United States and its allies will respond if the country escalates.

"I'm also prepared for some form of diplomacy, but it has to be conditioned upon the end result of denuclearization," says Biden, adding that he agrees with former President Barack Obama's warning that North Korea was the most pressing foreign policy priority to watch.

North Korea's neighbors reported the country fired four short-range missiles into the sea in its first missile launches in about a year.

Biden also committed to pulling U.S. troops from Afghanistan but expressed doubts about meeting a May 1 deadline for withdrawal set by an agreement signed under former President Donald Trump.

"We will leave. The question is when we will leave," Biden said.

The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and has been there ever since in the longest war in American history.

Last year, the Trump administration signed a peace deal with the Taliban that would remove the last of several thousand troops by May 1.

Biden in his news conference Thursday repeated comments he made recently that it would be difficult to meet the deadline.

He noted that Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Brussels this week discussing the issue with the country's NATO allies.