Reign safe if nukes let go, Trump tells Kim

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday reassured North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that he would remain in power under any nuclear deal reached with the United States, emphasizing that his administration is not seeking regime change after Pyongyang threatened to cancel the leaders’ summit.

In impromptu remarks at the White House, Trump contradicted national security adviser John Bolton, who had said the administration would ask North Korea to emulate the “Libya model” from 2003 in which the Moammar Gadhafi regime relinquished its nascent nuclear weapons program.

A top Kim aide this week blasted Bolton for the comment, blaming the Libya deal for Gadhafi’s 2011 downfall.

“The Libya model isn’t the model that we have at all when we’re thinking of North Korea,” Trump said. “In Libya, we decimated that country. That country was decimated.”

He stressed that he is “willing to do a lot” to provide security guarantees to Kim. “The best thing he could do is make a deal.”

A deal with North Korea, Trump said, “would be with Kim Jong Un, something where he’d be there, he’d be in his country, he’d be running his country, his country would be very rich, his country would be very industrious.”

Past administrations, including under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, also have had a policy that does not call for regime change in North Korea. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has met with Kim twice in Pyongyang over the past two months, has reportedly told Kim directly that the United States is not seeking his removal from power.

But Trump’s comments provided a public guarantee that appeared aimed at trying to ensure the North Koreans would not back out of the summit, which is scheduled for June 12 in Singapore.

Trump said Thursday that his administration is continuing to negotiate with Pyongyang over the specific site to be used for the meeting in Singapore.

The two sides “are continuing to negotiate in terms of location, the location as to where to meet, how to meet, rooms, everything else.

“They’ve been negotiating like nothing happened,” he said, referring to the doubt the North cast on the meetings.

Bolton said in recent weeks that the Libya model would require North Korea to fully abandon its nuclear program before the U.S. would offer reciprocal benefits, such as easing economic sanctions.

But Trump suggested Bolton was referring to what would happen if Pyongyang did not make a deal.

“The best thing he could do is to make a deal,” Trump said of Kim.

White House aides meanwhile denied that Kim is in the driver’s seat. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders emphasized that it was Kim who extended an invitation to Trump for a meeting, which the president accepted in March.

Trump noted that Kim has met twice with Chinese President Xi Jinping and that the Chinese could have encouraged North Korea’s actions Wednesday, when Pyongyang abruptly called off planned talks with South Korean officials, objecting to routine joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States.

Today, South Korea’s Unification Ministry spokesman said it believes the North remains committed to improving relations.

Baek Tae-hyun said Seoul expects Pyongyang to faithfully abide by the agreements reached between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in in their summit last month. The Korean leaders had issued a vague vow on the “complete denuclearization” of the peninsula and pledged permanent peace.

“We are just at the starting point, and we will not stop or waver as we move forward for peace in the Korean Peninsula,” Baek said.

Referring to the joint drills with South Korea, Pentagon spokesman Dana White said Thursday that the schedule of military exercises hasn’t changed.

She added that the annual drills are long-planned, defensive in nature and meant to ensure the readiness of the forces of the two allies.

The latest pushback from North Korea has dealt a blow to the foreign policy agenda of South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, whose approval ratings at home have soared since his country arranged the meeting between Kim and Trump.

Kim told visiting South Korean officials in March that he “understands” the drills would take place and expressed hope that they’ll be modified once the situation on the peninsula stabilizes, according to the South Korean government.

But on Thursday, Pyongyang called Moon’s government “impudent” and “shameless” for asking for inter-Korean talks while it continued the military exercises.

Moon’s government vowed Thursday to “step up a mediator’s role,” urging North Korea and the United States to “respect each other” and “think in the other’s shoes” despite occasional setbacks.