N. Korea keen to rid itself of nukes
seoul — North Korea has expressed its commitment to “complete denuclearisation” of the Korean peninsula and is not seeking conditions, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Thursday, as the United States vowed to maintain “maximum pressure” on Pyongyang.
Moon said big-picture agreements about denuclearisation, establishing a peace regime and normalisation of relations between the two Koreas and the United States should not be difficult to reach through summits between the North and South, and between the North and the US.
“I don’t think denuclearisation has different meanings for South and North Korea. The North is expressing a will for a complete denuclearisation,” Moon said during a lunch with chief executives of Korean media companies.
“They have not attached any conditions that the US cannot accept, such as the withdrawal of American troops from South Korea. All they are talking about is the end of hostile policies against North Korea, followed by a guarantee of security.”
Seoul announced on Wednesday that it is considering how to change a decades-old armistice with Pyongyang into a peace accord. —
seoul — North Korea has expressed its commitment to “complete denuclearisation” of the Korean peninsula and is not seeking conditions, South Korean President Moon Jaein said on Thursday, as the United States vowed to maintain “maximum pressure” on Pyongyang.
Moon said big-picture agreements about denuclearisation, establishing a peace regime and normalisation of relations between the two Koreas and the United States should not be difficult to reach through summits between the North and South, and between the North and the United States.
“I don’t think denuclearisation has different meanings for South and North Korea. The North is expressing a will for a complete denuclearisation,” Moon said during a lunch with chief executives of Korean media companies.
“They have not attached any conditions that the US cannot accept, such as the withdrawal of American troops from South Korea. All they are talking about is the end of hostile policies against North Korea, followed by a guarantee of security.”
Trump said on Wednesday he hoped the summit would be successful, but warned he would call it off if he did not think it would produce results. Trump told a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minis- ter Shinzo Abe that his campaign of “maximum pressure” on North Korea would continue until Pyongyang gave up its nuclear weapons.
“The United States remains committed to complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearsisation of North Korea,” US Disarmament Ambassador Robert Wood told a news conference in Geneva on Thursday ahead of a two-week conference on the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty.
“In terms of the pressure campaign, things we are very interested in are maintaining the pressure, meaning enforcing sanctions, ensuring that the North is not able to get access to funds that help further his nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.”
Taks between the US and North Korean leaders will strive for “concrete” steps towards denuclearisation and Trump’s dealmaking “abilities” will be crucial, Washington’s disarmament ambassador said on Thursday.
“We do not want to go through (the) traditional process that happened over the years where you get this gradual kind of approach that the North eventually goes back on,” the US envoy to the United Nations Conference on Disarmament, Robert Wood, said. —