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Post by Admin on May 15, 2018 18:16:30 GMT
U.S. officials say they want to see significant demolition of North Korean nuclear facilities to offer significant sanctions relief. Still, Washington might settle for an end to further testing and weapons development, staving off the threat to the U.S. mainland. South Korea – already well within range of North Korean conventional artillery that U.S. analysts say could kill tens of thousands in hours – would likely take the same deal. How North Korea nuke negotiations could finally lead to peace Channel 4 News Japan, also within striking distance, is much more cautious, a major topic in meetings between Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last week. Tokyo realizes it cannot veto the joint South Korean-U.S. diplomatic effort, one of the reasons it is now seeking its own direct dialogue with Pyongyang.
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Post by Admin on May 18, 2018 18:12:38 GMT
North Korea says it will not resume talks with the South until issues between the two countries are resolved.
Its chief negotiator dismissed the South Korean authorities as incompetent and senseless. Pyongyang is angry at continuing US-South Korea joint military exercises.
President Donald Trump is attempting to soothe North Korean concerns ahead of his planned summit with Kim Jong-un.
The current US-South Korean aerial combat drills known as Max Thunder involve nearly 100 warplanes carrying out exercises over the Korean peninsula.
North Korea described them as a "provocation" and a rehearsal for an invasion.
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Post by Admin on May 26, 2018 18:17:14 GMT
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump signaled that his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un might not happen. “There’s a very substantial chance it won’t work out,” Trump told reporters. “I don’t want to waste a lot of time, and I’m sure he doesn’t want to waste a lot of time.” It’s not just Trump — North Korean leaders are increasingly raising doubts about whether the meeting will happen. “If the US is trying to drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment, we will no longer be interested in such dialogue and cannot but reconsider our proceeding to the DPRK-US summit,” said Kim Kye Gwan, vice foreign minister, on May 15, using the official acronym for North Korea. So it seems the summit is not 100 percent guaranteed to take place. That brings up vital questions: What happens if the summit falls through — or if it takes place but the two sides leave the negotiating table without resolving the decades-old nuclear standoff between Washington and Pyongyang? Those are distinct possibilities given that the two sides have laid out positions that seem difficult, if not impossible, to resolve. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, for instance, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday that he had told Kim the Trump administration wants the “complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization” of North Korea, meaning Pyongyang fully dismantles its nuclear program.
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Post by Admin on May 31, 2018 18:14:26 GMT
A new U.S. intelligence assessment has concluded that North Korea does not intend to give up its nuclear weapons any time soon, three U.S. officials told NBC News — a finding that conflicts with recent statements by President Donald Trump that Pyongyang intends to do so in the future.
Trump is continuing to pursue a nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un even though the CIA analysis, which is consistent with other expert opinion, casts doubt on the viability of Trump's stated goal for the negotiations, the elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons stockpile.
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Post by Admin on Jun 2, 2018 18:05:59 GMT
"Everybody knows they are not going to denuclearize," said one intelligence official who read the report, which was circulated earlier this month, days before Trump canceled the originally scheduled summit. In an odd twist, a list of potential concessions by North Korea in the CIA analysis included the possibility that Kim Jong Un may consider offering to open a Western franchise in Pyongyang as a show of goodwill, according to three national security officials.
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