Rocky road to diplomacy

HE promised “fire and fury”, but when President Donald Trump clasped hands with his so-called “Rocket Man”, he may also have secretly thumbed his nose at his three presidential predecessors.

He claimed in February: “The Bush administration did nothing, The Obama administration wanted to do something. They didn’t do anything. It would have been much easier in those days than it is now.”

North Korea has been a festering sore for US presidents from Bill Clinton to Obama.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton warned Pyongyang it faced defeat if it attempted to wage a war of aggression on the US. He stressed: “They would pay a price so great that the nation would probably not survive as it is known today.”

He devised a plan to provide $4 billion in energy aid to North Korea in return for the disbandment and dismantling of its nuclear programme but the Republicans overtook Congress and scrapped the deal.

President George W

Bush also adopted fiery language in 2002 to describe North Korea, Iran and Iraq as an “axis of evil”.

North Korea responded by booting out International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and leaving the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which it had been part of since December 1985.

Talks in 2003 led to an agreement to halt nuclear testing in 2007 in exchange for North Korea receiving 950,000 metric tonnes of oil or economic aid to the same value. But it collapsed in 2009 when the North launched a rocket, breaching the agreement. President Barak Obama adopted a conciliatory stance, preferring a diplomatic approach.

North Korea eventually agreed to halt its nuclear missile programme in 2012 in exchange for food aid from the US, but soon speeded up its nuclear missile tests.

President Obama’s diplomatic approach failed to prevent increasing numbers of nuclear tests being carried out.