Trump: North Korea nuke threat ended
Japan, South Korea still skeptical about promise
WASHINGTON — America and the world can “sleep well tonight,” President Donald Trump declared on Wednesday, boasting that his summit with Kim Jong Un had ended any nuclear threat from North Korea.
While Trump claimed an historic breakthrough at the most significant diplomatic event of his presidency, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was more measured. He said the U.S. wants North Korea to take “major” nuclear disarmament steps within the next two years — before the end of Trump’s first term in 2021.
Pompeo also cautioned that the U.S. would resume “war games” with close ally South Korea if the North stops negotiating in good faith. The president had announced a halt in the drills after his meeting with Kim on Tuesday, a concession long sought by Pyongyang.
The summit in Singapore did mark a reduction in tensions — a sea change from last fall, when North Korea was conducting nuclear and missile tests and Trump and Kim were trading threats and insults that stoked fears of war. Kim is now promising to work toward a denuclearized Korean Peninsula.
Pompeo, who flew to Seoul to brief South Korean leaders, said the brief, four-point joint statement that emerged from the summit did not encapsulate all the progress the U.S. and North Korea had made. He said negotiations would recommence “in the next week or so.”
“We have big teams ready to go,”