White House: Talks with North Korea must lead to ending nuclear program

[webfact]

White House: Talks with North Korea must lead to ending nuclear program

By Yuna Park and Roberta Rampton

 

Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics - Closing ceremony - Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium - Pyeongchang, South Korea - February 25, 2018 - South Korean President Moon Jae-in, his wife Kim Jung-sook, Ivanka Trump, U.S. President Donald Trump's daughter and senior White House adviser, and Kim Yong Chol of the North Korea delegation attend the closing ceremony. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

 

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said any talks with North Korea must lead to an end to its nuclear program after senior officials from Pyongyang visiting South Korea said on Sunday their government was open to talks with the United States.

 

The North Korean delegation, in Pyeongchang for the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics, met at an undisclosed location with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, and expressed a willingness to meet with the United States, Moon's office said in a statement.

 

The Pyongyang delegation said developments in relations between the two Koreas and between North Korea and the United States should go hand in hand, according to the statement.

 

The Olympics gave a boost to recent engagement between the two Koreas after more than a year of sharply rising tensions over the North's missile program and its sixth and largest nuclear test in defiance of U.N. sanctions.

 

The United States announced on Friday it was imposing its largest package of sanctions aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear and missile programs.

 

On Sunday, North Korean state media accused the United States of provoking confrontation on the Korean peninsula with the sanctions.

The White House said its sanctions would continue.

 

"We will see if Pyongyang's message today, that it is willing to hold talks, represents the first steps along the path to denuclearization," the White House said in a statement.

 

"In the meantime, the United States and the world must continue to make clear that North Korea's nuclear and missile programs are a dead end," it said.

 

NO INTERACTION WITH IVANKA TRUMP

 

Moon, the North Korean delegation, and Ivanka Trump, U.S. President Donald Trump's daughter, were among dignitaries who attended the Olympics closing ceremony on Sunday.

 

Ivanka Trump, a senior White House adviser, did not interact with the North Korean delegation, a senior U.S. administration official said. She met Moon on Friday as part of a weekend trip leading the U.S. delegation to the closing ceremony.

 

North Korea sent former military intelligence chief Kim Yong Chol, an official accused of being behind a deadly 2010 attack on a South Korean warship, to lead its delegation.

 

The decision enraged the families of 46 sailors killed in the torpedo attack and threatened the mood of rapprochement that Seoul sought to create at what it called the "Peace Games."

 

North Korea has denied its involvement in the sinking.

 

Moon met Kim in Pyeongchang, where the Olympics were held, before the closing ceremony, the South Korean government said.

 

Earlier, about 100 conservative South Korean lawmakers and activists staged a sit-in near the border with North Korea, to protest Kim's arrival and facing off against about 2,500 South Korean police.

 

The North's delegation took a different route, prompting the opposition Korea Liberty Party to accuse Moon's administration of "abuse of power and an act of treason" by rerouting the motorcade to shield it from the protest.

 

TRUMP WARNING

 

The North sent Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, to the opening ceremony.

 

She was the centre of a frenzy of attention, especially when she appeared at the opening ceremony and was only a few feet from U.S. Vice President Mike Pence. They did not speak.

 

Kim Yo Jong and the North's nominal head of state were the most senior North Korean officials to visit the South in more than a decade. The North Korean leader later said he wanted to create a "warm climate of reconciliation and dialogue."

 

The U.S. president, in announcing the new sanctions on Friday, warned of a "phase two" that could be "very, very unfortunate for the world" if the sanctions did not work.

 

North Korea denounced the sanctions in a statement carried on its state media and said a blockade by the United States would be considered an act of war.

 

China also reacted angrily, saying on Saturday the unilateral targeting of Chinese firms and people risked harming cooperation on North Korea.

Moon won election last year promising to try to improve relations with the North.

 

(Reporting by Yuna Park and Christine Kim in Seoul; additional reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb and Roberta Rampton in Washington; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Jeffrey Benkoe)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-02-26

[lovelomsak]

50 minutes ago, webfact said:

The White House said any talks with North Korea must lead to an end to its nuclear program after senior officials from Pyongyang visiting South Korea said on Sunday their government was open to talks with the United States.

 

So what America is saying no talking unless it is done their way. But a demanding bunch of bastards huh.

  They only will talk if they can be assured they get their way before the talks even start.

Edited February 26, 2018 by lovelomsak

[Topdoc]

What if North Korea doesn't end its nuclear program?

[doctormann]

I do sometimes wonder just who is the aggressor here!

[DM07]

Yeah....not gonna happen!

The 'Muricans really live in Lalaland, if they think that!

[quandow]

The only thing staving off the U.S. empire's domination of North Korea is their nuclear program. Look what happened to Iran.

Now imagine if North Korea, Russia or China did the same thing to the U.S. on its Canadian and Mexican borders:

Edited February 26, 2018 by quandow
Formatting

[quandow]

And again, please don't blame the average 'Murikan, especially those of us in Thailand. For most of us, there is a VERY GOOD REASON why we live here and not back in the states (well, OK, more than one but this one IS important 555!). We don't trust nor like our government and are ashamed of its behavior from more than the last 50 years, maybe longer. I personally don't trust most history stories I read any more.

[Truth2W]

Speaking to North Korea is as difficult as teaching a horse to sing. Believing whatever they promise is impossible with common sense. I really cannot see the reason why anybody want to waste time this way.

[Spike1938]

As I heard someone say: "Expecting N. Korea to give up their nuclear program is like waiting for the seas to dry up."

Why doesn't the USA ask Israel to give up its' nuclear program? Or France, or England or itself for that matter?

 

[IAMHERE]

At some point China will give NOrth Korea to the South in trade for all rights to the South China Sea. Don't have to do much except to pull all Murican warships out of that region, let the rest of the world argue about freedom of the seas in that area with the Chinese.