TRUMP PRAISES KIM BUT SAYS SANCTIONS MUST STAY
U.S. President Donald Trump praised North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday for his courage in taking steps to disarm, but said much work still had to be done and sanctions must remain in place on North Korea until it denuclearizes.
“The missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction, nuclear testing has stopped, some military facilities are already being dismantled,” Trump said in his speech to the annual United Nations General Assembly.
“I would like to thank Chairman
Kim for his courage and for the steps he has taken, though much work remains to be done,” Trump said. “The sanctions will stay in place until denuclearization occurs.” Trump’s remarks on North Korea were dramatically different from those in his speech last year at the U.N. assembly, when he threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea and mocked the North Korean leader as “Rocket Man” on a “suicide mission”. Trump held an unprecedented summit with Kim in Singapore in June which yielded a broad pledge by Kim to “work toward” denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
However, Kim’s commitments and actions so far have fallen far short of Washington’s demands for a complete inventory of North Korea’s weapons programmes and irreversible steps to give up a nuclear arsenal that threatens the United States.
Trump has nevertheless heaped personal praise on Kim and expressed enthusiasm for a second summit. On Monday, he said he expected this to be announced “pretty soon” but that the location had yet to be determined.