by Editor | May 25, 2021 | World
Tokyo : Visiting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday said North Korea had reaffirmed its commitment to denuclearization during his recent trip to Pyongyang.
At a joint press conference here with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts, Taro Koko and Kang Kyung-wha, Pompeo described his talks in North Korea as “very productive” and these were in “good-faith”, adding that Pyongyang had agreed to the destruction of a missile facility, reports Efe news.
He also said the sanctions against the regime would remain in place until it has completely dismantled its nuclear weapons program.
“While we are encouraged by the progress of these talks, progress alone does not justify relaxing the sanctions regime,” Pompeo said, adding that the road ahead would be difficult and challenging.
Pompeo downplayed criticism by the North Korean foreign minister Gen. Kim Yong-chol, who on Saturday called Washington’s attitude during the negotiations “regrettable” and “gangster-like” and the outcome of the talks “very concerning” in a statement issued hours after the top American diplomat’s departure.
He said Pyongyang understood that the regime’s denuclearization must be complete and verified.
Kim is considered an important figure of North Korean intelligence and was a key player in paving the way for the historic summit in Singapore between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump.
Pompeo also reiterated the US’ commitment to defending its allies, including South Korea and Japan, and said that Sunday’s trilateral meeting, the third in less than a month, served to strengthen cooperation to ensure the implementation of the agreements signed by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump at a summit in Singapore last month.
—IANS
by Editor | May 25, 2021 | World
Washington : US President Donald Trump cited an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to American national security as he maintained long-standing economic restrictions on North Korea, including the freezing of any assets in Washington, a media report said.
An official declaration, contained in a notice to Congress, came on Friday despite Trump’s assertion this month that his June 12 historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ended Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons threat, reports The Washington Post.
Harsh economic restrictions will continue for one year under the declaration Trump signed Friday.
The paperwork keeps in place restrictions first imposed a decade ago by President George W. Bush.
The ban on the transfer of any American assets by North Korea’s leaders or its ruling party has been extended or expanded several times by former President Barack Obama and Trump himself in response to North Korean missile tests and other actions.
“The existence and risk of proliferation of weapons-usable fissile material on the Korean Peninsula (and_ the actions and policies of the government of North Korea… Continue to constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the US,” Trump wrote in the declaration.
Friday’s development comes in contrast to a tweet on June 13 where Trump said: “Just landed – a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office… There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.”
The move follows as the US and South Korea cancelled two more training exercises on Friday, reports the BBC.
The Pentagon said the goal was to support diplomatic negotiations.
—IANS
by Editor | May 25, 2021 | Business Summit, Events, Social Round-up, World
By Arul Louis,
New York : US President Donald Trump is proposing phased negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, starting with the planned June 12 summit in Singapore during which he does not expect a complete deal on denuclearisation.
At the same time, Trump has also set an ambitious goal for his interactions with Kim aiming for an end to the official 70-year state of war between the US and North Korea.
After a meeting Kim Yong-chol, the North Korean leader’s emissary, in Washington on Friday, Trump confirmed that the Singapore summit he had canceled last week was back on track.
“I think we’re going to have a relationship, and it will start on June 12th,” the President said.
Kim Yong-chol traveled to Washington after two days of negotiations with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in New York to hand over a letter from Kim Jong-un to Trump.
Trump said that “it ended up being a two-hour conversation with the second most powerful man in North Korea” during which they discussed a whole range of subjects.
Tamping down hopes of an imminent breakthrough, Trump said: “We’re not going to go in and sign something on June 12th and we never were. We’re going to start a process. And I told them today, ‘Take your time. We can go fast. We can go slowly’. But I think they’d like to see something happen.
“You’re talking about years of hostility; years of problems; years of, really, hatred between so many different nations. But I think you’re going to have a very positive result in the end.”
As a goodwill gesture, Trump said that he will not be putting any more sanctions on North Korea, but the existing ones will continue.
Pompeo, however, has asserted that the US won’t budge from the ultimate goal of denuclearising North Korea.
“I have been very clear that President Trump and the United States objective is very consistent and well known: the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula,” he sad on Thursday.
North Korea poses a major threat with the nuclear devices as well as missiles capable of reaching the US mainland that it has developed.
After it tested them last year, the two leaders traded threats and abuses, while the US succeeded in tightening the UN sanctions on North Korea.
Later this year they cooled down and agreed to talk.
While preparations were going on for the talks, there was a burst of “tremendous anger and open hostility” coming out of Pyongyang last month, which Trump cited to call off the talks.
They were provoked by comments from Trump’s new National Security Adviser John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence invoking a “Libyan model” for dealing with North Korea.
It upset Pyongyang because after Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi shutdown his nuclear programme in 2003 after which he was overthrown and killed in 2011 following attacks by US and its European allies.
Bolton and Pence have been sidelined and Pompeo, whom Trump has praised for negotiating with North Korea, has taken centre stage.
While Trump would score points internationally and domestically by pulling off the summit and soften his hardline image by having the summit, Kim Jong-un appears to be equally invested in the denuclearisation talks that could translate to economic development for his impoverished country that is under severe economic sanctions.
Trump said that if the nuclear issue is resolved, he expected South Korea, Japan and China to provide aid to North Korea, without any cost to the US for rebuilding it.
Trump said that during the meeting with Kim Yong-chol they talked about ending the Korean War which continues formally.
“And there is a possibility of something like that,” he added.
(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
—IANS
by Editor | May 25, 2021 | Business Summit, Events, Social Round-up, World
North and South Korea are resuming senior-level peace talks
Panmunjom : A high-level meeting took place between North Korea and South Korea on Friday to discuss steps to implement the agreement reached by their leaders in the April 27 and May 26 summits.
In the meeting, North Korea proposed holding joint events in South Korea to mark the anniversary of the two Koreas’ first-ever summit in 2000, a Unification Ministry official said.
South Korea also proposed opening a liaison office in the North Korean border city of Kaesong as the first step to implement the agreements reached in the April 27 summit, reports Yonhap news agency.
The North shared the need to open such an office as soon as possible, according to the official.
The morning session of the meeting, that started at 10 a.m. at Panmunjom, ended after less than an hour. Both the Koreas will resume their talks in the afternoon.
“The two sides exchanged broad ideas with regard to schedules for talks in each sector, joint events to mark the June 15 summit (held in 2000) and the (opening of) a liaison office. After reviewing each other’s proposals, they agreed to meet again. There appear to be no big differences in their stances,” a ministry official said.
The talks were originally scheduled for May 16, but North Korea abruptly called it off at the last minute, taking issue with joint military drills between South Korea and the US.
In an apparently hastily arranged second inter-Korean summit last week, the leaders of the two Koreas agreed to hold high-level talks on June 1.
—IANS
by Editor | May 25, 2021 | Business Summit, Events, Social Round-up, World
Washington : US President Donald Trump said on Friday that a nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un could still take place as scheduled on June 12, just one day after he cancelled it blaming Pyongyang’s “open hostility”.
“We’ll see what happens. It could even be the 12th,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before leaving for the US Naval Academy to deliver a commencement address.
“They very much want to do it. We’d like to do it. We’re going to see what happens,” he was quoted as saying by the US media.
Earlier, North Korea issued a conciliatory statement in response to Trump’s decision to scrap his meeting with Kim.
“We reiterate to the US that there is a willingness to sit down at any time, in any way, to solve the problem,” said a top official at the North Korean Foreign Ministry.
Trump, in a morning tweet, hailed Pyongyang’s statement, saying: “Very good news to receive the warm and productive statement from North Korea.”
“We will soon see where it will lead, hopefully to long and enduring prosperity and peace. Only time (and talent) will tell!”
Asked earlier whether the North Koreans were playing games, the US President acknowledged they were — and suggested he was too, CNN reported.
“Everybody plays games. You know that,” he said when asked about the ongoing talks. “You know that better than anybody.”
Minutes before his Friday tweet, Trump claimed Democrats were “rooting” against his administration in its negotiations with North Korea.
“Democrats are so obviously rooting against us in our negotiations with North Korea… Dems have lost touch!”
He wrote a letter on Thursday to Kim informing him that their June 12 meeting in Singapore was off due to Pyongyang’s “open hostility” towards Washington.
After the news the summit was called off, Democrats criticized Trump for the decision. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters that the cancelled summit was “a good thing for Kim Jong-un”.
Republicans, however, hailed the President’s action as a tough negotiating move.
Trump’s comments fuelled the uncertainty and confusion surrounding his attempts to broker a nuclear agreement with North Korea.
A senior White House official said that it would be extremely difficult to hold the summit on the original date, especially because North Korea cut off contact with the US regarding planning and logistics.
“June 12 is in 10 minutes,” the official said.
—IANS
