US plays down North Korea threat to cancel Trump-Kim summit
Pyongyang rejects ‘Libya model’ of nuclear disarmament
The White House pushed back on North Korea’s threat to pull out of a summit over indications Washington will push for a “Libya model” of nuclear disarmament, saying President Donald Trump is “ready to meet” next month with Kim Jong-un. “He’ll be there, and he’ll be ready” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said of Trump in a Fox News interview, adding that North Korea’s threat to back out of talks isn’t out of the ordinary amid heated discussions between adversaries. “We’re ready to meet, and if it happens that’s great, but if it doesn’t we’ll see what happens,” she said. “If it doesn’t we’ll continue the maximum pressure campaign that has been ongoing.”
The comments came after Kim Kye-gwan, a vice foreign minister and a top North Korea disarmament negotiator, said the regime was disappointed by recent comments from the US on their goals for the summit, according to a statement published yesterday by the state-run Korean Central News Agency. Kim said North Korea felt “repugnance” towards National Security Adviser John Bolton and rejected a “Libya model” in which the regime quickly gives away its nuclear weapons.
“If the US is trying to drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment, we will no longer be interested in such dialogue and cannot but reconsider our proceeding to the summit,” Kim said. He added that Trump risked becoming a “more tragic and unsuccessful president than his predecessors” if he didn’t accept North Korea as a nuclear power.
The US is still hopeful about a planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un but President Donald Trump is prepared for a tough negotiation process, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said yesterday.
North Korea threw next month’s summit between Kim and Trump into doubt yesterday, threatening weeks of diplomatic progress by saying it may reconsider if Washington insists it unilaterally gives up its nuclear weapons.
“We’re still hopeful that the meeting will take place and we’ll continue down that path but at the same time we’ve been prepared that these could be tough negotiations,” Sanders said in an interview with Fox News. “The president is ready if the meeting takes place. If it doesn’t, we’ll continue the maximum pressure campaign that’s been ongoing.” Sanders said the comments from North Korea were “not something that is out of the ordinary in these types of operations.
“The president’s fully prepared and fully ready to carry on in these conversations both leading up to and if the meeting takes place,” she said. “He’ll be there and he’ll be ready.”
According to North Korea’s official KCNA news agency, Pyongyang’s first vice minister of foreign affairs, Kim Kye Gwan, specifically criticised US national security adviser John Bolton, who has called for the North to quickly give up its nuclear arsenal in a deal that mirrors Libya’s abandonment of its weapons of mass destruction.