No ‘Libya model’ for denuclearisation of North Korea: Trump
US President Donald Trump has reassured North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that his security was guaranteed in any deal the two leaders reach at a planned summit that Pyongyang has threatened to cancel.
Trump insisted on Thursday the talks were on. But he suggested “things changed a little bit when they met with China”, referring to Kim’s recent meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which he said was “a little bit of a surprise.”
North Korea has threatened to call off the summit scheduled for June 12 in Singapore, citing “provocative” military exercises being conducted by the US and South Koreans and remarks from US National Security advisor John Bolton that the US is considering the Libya model for North Korea’s nuclear programme.
But Trump said “the Libya model isn’t the model that we have at all when we’re thinking of North Korea ”.
“In Libya, we decimated that country. There was no deal to keep (Muammar) Gaddafi. The Libyan model that was mentioned was a much different deal. This would be with Kim Jong Un -- something where he’d be there, he’d be in his country, he’d be running his country.”
Gaddafi gave up his nuclear weapons programme in 2003-04 in return for relief from sanc- tions. He was forced out of office during a Nato-led intervention in 2011 and was killed by rebel forces while on the run.
North Koreans were annoyed by Bolton’s reference in a TV interview to the Libyan model, which he had brought up as a formula for verifiable denuclearisation in exchange for relief from sanctions. North Korea’s first vice foreign minister Kim Gye Gwan said “we do not hide our feeling of repugnance towards” Trump administration officials who he accused of “letting loose the assertions of a so-called Libya model of nuclear abandonment.”
Regime change has not been US policy for North Korea for a while now, and secretary of state Mike Pompeo had conveyed that assurance to Kim in their two meetings. Pompeo has said the US will help North Korea’s economic development should it agree to give up its nuclear weapons.
On Thursday, President Trump said Kim will “get protections that would be very strong.”