At a surprise meeting between the DPRK leader, Kim Jong Un, and the ROK President Moon Jae In, Kim reportedly declared that he wasn’t afraid of disarming, he concern was about what the US might do if he does.
WASHINGTON — United States President Donald Trump’s cancellation of next month’s summit with the Supreme Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kim Jong-un, came as a bit of a surprise and a jarring break from developments such as the release of three U.S. hostages by Pyongyang and the country’s apparent follow-through on a pledge to demolish its nuclear test facility.
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump, to the dismay of many, published a letter announcing he was calling off a much heralded tête-à-tête with North Korea’s reclusive leader Kim Jong-un, aimed at ending the North’s nuclear program.
It followed weeks of aggressive statements by both sides, which appeared to have been set off by US National Security Advisor John Bolton suggesting in an interview that the “Libya model” (disarmament followed by regime change) should be applied to North Korea.
On June 12, United States President Donald J. Trump was supposed to be the first POTUS to get the Korean leadership to sit down at the table of a possible peace treaty and nuclear disarmament. Getting this far into the process has been viewed as historic and unprecedented, which, in a way, it truly is, but has been somewhat of a rocky road and not entirely due to foreign parties.
Trump’s ‘Art’ of Deal Making
US President Donald Trump has just announced that he will not hold a long planned meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The meeting was scheduled to take place on June 12th in Singapore. The cancellation follows more than a week of escalating verbal attacks between American and North Korean officials.
The White House twitter account released this letter from President Trump to Chairman Kim:
The prospects for peace diplomacy between the US and North Korea took a sudden hit after President Donald Trump issued an extraordinary threat to Kim Jong Un. It was in effect a death threat.
On Fox News Sunday, United States national security advisor John Bolton brought up the Libya model as a template for the denuclearization of North Korea.
Following up, president Donald Trump noted, “In Libya, we decimated that country. That country was decimated.” However, Trump did assure North Korean chairman Kim Jong-un that he’d remain in power after denuclearization.
Then came US vice-president Michael Pence on Fox News:
Virtually everyone in the US faults North Korea for threatening to cancel the Trump-Kim summit scheduled for June 12 in Singapore. No one, including the liberal media, bothers to address North Korea’s conditions for a successful summit or the reasons for its warning about a cancellation. Let’s review the matter with some objectivity.
First, John Bolton again opened his big mouth referring to ‘the Libya model’, where a nation that denuclearized experienced a US backed regime change that has left the nation a failed state ever since, right when Washington is supposedly attempting to broker a denuclearization deal with a country that Trump has been threatening to bomb, as well as get a peace settlement established.
Alex Christoforou with Peter Lavelle on North Korea’s sudden threat to cancel the nuclear summit with US President Trump, because Kim Jong-un believes “provocative military” joint U.S. – South Korea drills are a rehearsal for an invasion.
What is North Korea signaling to the world with this latest announcement, and how will the US react?
