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Kim ready to meet Trump 'anytime', but warns of 'new path'


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Kim ready to meet Trump 'anytime', but warns of 'new path'

By Hyonhee Shin and Soyoung Kim

 

2019-01-01T012456Z_1_LYNXNPEF000RG_RTROPTP_4_NORTHKOREA-USA-SOUTHKOREA.JPG

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walk after lunch at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore June 12, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

 

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said on Tuesday he is ready to meet U.S. President Donald Trump again at anytime to achieve their common goal of denuclearising the Korean Peninsula, but warned he may have to take an alternative path if U.S. sanctions and pressure against the country continued.

 

In a nationally televised New Year address, Kim said denuclearisation was his "firm will" and North Korea had "declared at home and abroad that we would neither make and test nuclear weapons any longer nor use and proliferate them".

 

Kim added that Pyongyang had "taken various practical measures" and if Washington responded "with trustworthy measures and corresponding practical actions ... bilateral relations will develop wonderfully at a fast pace".

 

"I am always ready to sit together with the U.S. president anytime in the future, and will work hard to produce results welcomed by the international community without fail,” Kim said.

 

However, he warned that North Korea might be "compelled to explore a new path" to defend its sovereignty if the United States "seeks to force something upon us unilaterally ... and remains unchanged in its sanctions and pressure”.

 

It was not clear what Kim meant by "a new path," but his comments are likely to further fuel scepticism over whether North Korea intends to give up a nuclear weapons programme that it has long considered essential to its security.

 

There was no immediate comment from the White House and asked for a reaction, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said: "We decline the opportunity to comment."

 

South Korea's presidential office, however, welcomed Kim's speech, saying it carried his "firm will" to advance relations with Seoul and Washington.

 

Kim and Trump vowed to work towards denuclearisation and build "lasting and stable" peace at their landmark summit in Singapore in June, but little progress has been made since.

 

Trump has said a second summit with Kim is likely in January or February, though he wrote on Twitter last month that he was "in no hurry".

 

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made several trips to Pyongyang last year but the two sides have yet to reschedule a meeting between him and senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol after an abrupt cancellation in November.

 

Pyongyang has demanded Washington lift sanctions and declare an official end to the 1950-53 Korean War in response to its initial, unilateral steps towards denuclearisation, including dismantling its only known nuclear testing site and a key missile engine facility.

 

SANCTIONS

U.S. officials have said the extent of initial North Korean steps were not confirmed and could be easily reversed. Washington has halted some large-scale military exercises with Seoul to aid negotiations, but has called for strict global sanctions enforcement on impoverished North Korea until its full, verifiable denuclearisation.

 

Kim's reference to pledges not to make nuclear weapons could indicate a first moratorium on such weapons production, although it was not clear if this was conditional. While Pyongyang conducted no nuclear or missile tests last year, satellite images have pointed to continued activity at related facilities.

 

The U.S. special representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, reiterated last month that Washington had no intention of easing sanctions but had agreed to help South Korea send flu medication to North Korea, saying such cooperation could help advance nuclear diplomacy.

 

Analysts said Kim's message sent clear signals that North Korea was willing to stay in talks with Washington and Seoul this year - but on its own terms.

 

"North Korea seems determined in 2019 to receive some sort of sanctions relief ... The challenge, however, is will Team Trump be willing to back away from its position of zero sanctions relief?" said Harry Kazianis at the Washington-based Centre for the National Interest.

 

"Kim's remarks seem to suggest his patience with America is wearing thin."

 

After racing towards the goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the United States in 2017, Kim used last year's New Year speech to warn that "a nuclear button is always on the desk of my office" and order mass production of nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles.

 

But he also offered to send a delegation to the 2018 Winter Olympics in the South in February, setting off a flurry of diplomacy that included three summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, and the meeting with Trump in June.

 

This year, Kim said inter-Korean relations had entered a "completely new phase", and offered to resume key inter-Korean economic projects banned under international and South Korean sanctions, without conditions.

 

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin, Soyoung Kim and Hyunyoung Yi; additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Stephen Coates and Susan Thomas)

 
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-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-01-02
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Like all the others in the despot club (Putin, Saudi MBS, etc.) Kim has been playing neophyte dotard Trump since the outset, cleverly confronting, then catering to his extreme vanities, flattering him and giving him false face with the historic meeting in Singapore, and buttering him up and suckering him in. And, just like the others have done or are doing, he will get what he wants in the end, and the US will continue to be diminished on the world stage with the orange smartest man in the world having "never read a book, briefing or report" leader.

 

Meanwhile, all the US allies have been shat on. Even the ones who tried to use the flatter Trump tactic, like Macron and Trudeau. I suppose the analysis in world capitals of allies is all about how Long Trump will last in White House. If no impeachment or resignation likely this spring after Mueller report, I suppose all traditional allies will re-align away from the US for the next 6 years. If he is impeached/resigns they can expect America to be a reliable ally once again.

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3 hours ago, webfact said:

However, he warned that North Korea might be "compelled to explore a new path" to defend its sovereignty if the United States "seeks to force something upon us unilaterally ... and remains unchanged in its sanctions and pressure”.

Meanwhile Trump the carnival barker insists:

"I have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un,"

"We’re getting along very well,"

"... he is agreeing to work with me 100 percent on North Korea"

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/12/02/donald-trump-kim-jong-un-summit-nuclear-weapons-2019-north-korea/2183191002/

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1 minute ago, Happyfarangguy said:

Haters gonna hate. If you didn’t vote and don’t like the way things are going then please feel free park your pie holes in the shut position. 

You think peeps motivated to post on political threads are non-voters? How cute!!????????????

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2 hours ago, Happyfarangguy said:

Haters gonna hate. If you didn’t vote and don’t like the way things are going then please feel free park your pie holes in the shut position. 

Which might be an intelligent argument for a domestic policy issue....  however, when your supreme leader is sticking his stumpy didgits into world affairs, we who did not support the elevation of trump, to rule over us, have every right, nay.... duty....  to express our displeasure... hate, even... by opening our pie holes and howling in the orange buffoons direction.

 

the why of this is in public awareness, beyond the fug of trumps noxious swamp, where foreign leaders might still be swayed to act responsibly, regardless of US supplied gas masks.... freezing him and his mouthpieces out of positions of influence in the broader international community, for the good of that community.

 

lol.... perhaps admonish us instead on our opinions on 800,000 federal workers being railroaded over pay issues, or the 2% pay rise which has been snatched away, because trump already gave that money to his rich brothers and sisters in the fortune mar a Lagos club. (Although these actions are symptomatic of the cancer which is trump, and are suggestive of broader irrationality to come)

 

so, I suppose, instead you could / should perhaps beseech the embarrassment in orange, to shut his pie hole, and thereby reduce the incident of non republican voter backlash, worldwide... now wouldn’t that be nicer?

 

Oh yes it would ????

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