(ANTIMEDIA) In a move that Washington, D.C. will hopefully view as the extension of an olive branch, North Korea’s deputy U.N. envoy said Friday that negotiations between North Korea and the United States can begin as soon as the U.S. eases its aggressive actions toward his country.
“The rolling back of the hostile policy toward DPRK is the prerequisite for solving all the problems in the Korean Peninsula,” Ambassador Kim In Ryong told reporters, not mentioning North Korea’s controversial weapons programs directly. “Therefore, the urgent issue to be settled on [the] Korean Peninsula is to put a definite end to the U.S. hostile policy, the root cause of all problems.”
Alluding to the fact that Donald Trump recently said he’d be “honored” to sit down with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un if certain conditions were met, the ambassador says that until the U.S. shows a little good faith, Trump’s words are merely talk:
“As everybody knows, the Americans have gestured (toward) dialogue. But what is important is not words, but actions.”
Kim In Ryong’s comments come a day after the Washington Post published an article titled “The North Korean nuclear threat is very real. Time to start treating it that way.” The article’s author, Stephen Rademaker, a former assistant secretary of state, says the U.S. should accept the fact that North Korea is a nuclear-armed country and begin to respond appropriately to that reality.
The response, says Rademaker, should be to beef up defensive systems such as THAAD in South Korea — though defense alone won’t be enough. Rademaker also suggests the U.S. should redeploy its own nuclear missiles to the Korean Peninsula and says allies Japan and South Korea should start to think about doing the same.
Because if the problem is nuclear weapons, the answer — to the Washington Post, apparently — is more nuclear weapons.
Despite the media’s anti-North Korean propaganda buildup, this announcement may signal an easing of tensions between the Trump administration and Kim Jong-un, leading to a de-escalation that will prevent war in the region.
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