‘Extraordinary nuclear threat from N Korea’

A DAY AFTER RETURNING FROM HIS SINGAPORE SUMMIT, TRUMP HAD BOASTED BY TWEETING: “THERE IS NO LONGER A NUCLEAR THREAT FROM NORTH KOREA”

WASHINGTON:US President Donald Trump has cited ‘an unusual and extraordinary threat’ from North Korea’s nuclear arsenal to extend sanctions on Kim Jong Un’s regime, despite the hyped success of a historic summit earlier this month.

A presidential declaration sent to Congress on Friday struck a different note. It explained why the administration would keep in place the tough economic restrictions first imposed by former president George W Bush.

“The existence and risk of proliferation of weapons-usable fissile material on the Korean Peninsula and the actions and policies of the government of North Korea continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” it said.

“I am continuing for one year the national emergency with respect to North Korea,” added the statement on Friday.

Though the notice is considered pro forma, the disparity in tone reflects the work that US officials concede remains to be done as negotiators thrash out the details of Pyongyang’s disarmament.

At their summit, Kim and Trump signed a pledge “to work towards complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” a stock phrase favoured by Pyongyang that stopped short of longstanding US demands for North Korea to give up its atomic arsenal in a “verifiable” and “irreversible” way.

Critics have pointed to the vague wording of the non-binding summit document and raised fears that the summit could weaken the international coalition against the North’s nuclear programme.