North Korea accuses U.S. of making ‘unilateral’ demands in nuclear talks
Different descriptions of meeting raise fears that disarmament negotiations may be doomed
WASHINGTON – The United States and North Korea gave starkly contrasting reports Saturday at the end of two days of talks intended to firm up Pyongyang’s promise to dismantle its nuclear weapons systems.
The different descriptions of the meeting raised fears that disarmament negotiations may be doomed before they really begin.
While Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed limited “progress” in “productive” meetings, North Korea expressed “regret” over the talks and accused the Trump administration of making unfair “unilateral and gangster-like” demands.
Within hours of Pompeo’s departure early Saturday from the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, its foreign ministry issued a statement saying U.S. demands might lead to “a dangerous phase that might rattle our willingness for denuclearization that had been firm.”
Pompeo offered no details of his talks with North Korea’s former spy chief Kim Yong Chol nor did he outline any visible gains. He flew to Tokyo without meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in contrast to his two previous trips to Pyongyang in the last three months.
The meetings in Pyongyang were the first followup to the June 12 summit in Singapore, when President Donald Trump and Kim signed a brief, vague agreement to “work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.”
The agreement left all details to future talks. This just-ended first session underscores how complicated and arduous negotiations will be to persuade Kim to abandon the nuclear program he and his father and grandfather spent decades building.
The Singapore communique also said the two governments would revive a program of repatriating the remains of U.S. military personnel killed in the Korean War of the 1950s.
North Korea has yet to comply with that step. Pompeo said Pentagon officials would meet with North Korean counterparts Thursday, probably along the demilitarized border that separates North and South Korea, to discuss repatriations.
On more than one occasion, though, Trump has falsely claimed that some remains have already been repatriated, as The Huffington Post first reported.
“We got back our great fallen heroes, the remains. In fact today, already 200 have been sent back,” Trump said during a rally in Duluth, Minn., on June 20.
He repeated that claim in subsequent rallies in Las Vegas and West Columbia, S.C. “And you probably read, they have already done 200 people, which is so great,” he said at the Las Vegas rally.
Pompeo, speaking on the tarmac of the Pyongyang airport, said working groups were being formed from both governments to begin talks on the destruction of North Korea’s missile-engine testing facility.
It was little more than three years ago when rebels stormed the Nassib crossing on Syria’s southern border with Jordan. They rampaged through administrative buildings, ripping down the Syrian state flag and stomping on pictures of President Bashar Assad.
At the time, it was seen as yet another loss for a government on the verge of downfall, its battered troops in desperate retreat across the country.
On Friday, soldiers raised the state flag once again over Nassib, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported, in the run-up to a full cease-fire and the surrender of the rebels’ enclave in the southern province of Dara.
The victory further cements a Russian-engineered turnaround for Assad, which has handed him back control over what the French once called “La Syrie utile” – the string of major cities running from Aleppo down past Damascus and the country’s Mediterranean coastline.
It also clears the path for reopening the Nassib crossing, an important economic passageway whose loss had impoverished Syria and Jordan.
SANA posted images on its Telegram channel on Saturday of soldiers flashing a victory sign as they waved a flag over one building. Others showed stacks of ammunition and armored vehicles abandoned by the rebels.
At least seven people have been killed in Haiti as protests marked with violence broke out over a significant rise in gasoline prices, local media reported on Saturday.
Demonstrators burned tires, looted shops and set cars on fire in the capital, Port-au-prince, according to radio broadcaster Metropole.
There were reports of some gunfire. A hotel was also attacked in the rioting, HPN news agency said.
The seven casualties were reported following looting in the capital, the HPN news agency said. Police also spoke of casualties but did not mention any figures.
Protests were also reported from Cayes, Jeremie, Cap-haitien and Jacmel. The country’s airports were closed.
Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant said on Twitter that a planned price hike of up to 50 percent had been suspended. “The government strongly condemns the acts of violence and vandalism,” he wrote.
– Appeal-democrat news services