N. Korea sticks with ‘new era’ pledge
The Washington Post
SEOUL — North Korea appeared unwilling Sunday to respond harshly after President Donald Trump reversed course to declare it still a threat, pledging that its leader Kim Jong Un’s regime seeks a “new era” with the United States but offering no specific plans toward dismantling its nuclear program.
The comments also did not address promises by North Korea to return the remains of some U.S. military personnel from the Korean War.
On Saturday, the U.S. military sent 100 wooden coffins to a U.N.-supervised area in the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas in anticipation of receiving some of the remains.
A report in Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean website that reflects the views of Mr. Kim’s regime, urged both sides to move ahead with “faithfully implementing” the joint declaration from the June 12 summit in Singapore between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim.
The document expressed Mr. Kim’s “firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
But North Korea has yet to clarify its interpretation of denuclearization in the region. In the past, Pyongyang has defined it to include an end to the U.S.- South Korea military alliance and U.S. withdrawal of its nuclear umbrella protecting South Korea and Japan.
“We will conscientiously fulfill our responsibility to address decades-long tensions and hostile relations, and open a new era of the North-U. S. cooperation,” the Uriminzokkiri report added, without mentioning North Korea’s nuclear program or Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump on Friday cited an “unusual and extraordinary threat” posed by Mr. Kim’s regime and maintained U.S. economic sanctions on North Korea. Mr. Trump’s notice to Congress was in sharp contrast to his post-summit assertions that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat to the United States.
“Sleep well tonight!” Mr. Trump tweeted on June 13, the day after he and Mr. Kim met in Singapore.
In an apparent confidence-building step, the Pentagon and South Korea’s military have suspended military exercises.
On Friday, the Pentagon said the United States and South Korea have agreed to indefinitely suspend two Korean Marine Exchange Program training exercises. Spokeswoman Dana White said these would be in addition to the Freedom Guardian exercise scheduled for August that was suspended earlier last week.
After the summit, Mr. Trump echoed a phrase used by North Korea, calling the long-standing August military drills “provocative, expensive and inappropriate.”
“The path to thoroughly implementing the North-U. S. joint statement is the path to securing the common interests of the peoples of the two countries, and peace, security and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula and in the world,” said the Uriminzokkiri report.
According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, 7,700 American service members remain unaccounted for from the Korean War, and the remains of about 5,300 are believed to be located within North Korea. North Korean officials have said they have the remains of about 200 U.S. service members that they have recovered since the active conflict with the United States ended.
Repatriation of remains has occurred in the past, but only sporadically.
Pyongyang’s decision to stick with its “new era” pledge came days after Red Cross envoys said Friday after meetings in North Korea that reunions of families separated since the Korean War will resume in August as part of fast-moving engagement between two Koreas that has already led to breakthroughs including a military hotline between the two countries.
The reunions will take place over six days beginning Aug. 20, the first such event since 2015 to bring together families divided for nearly seven decades. About 100 people from each side will take part in the gatherings on North Korea’s Mount Kumgang, a resort about 10 miles north of the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.
Setting a clear plan for the reunions had been a priority of the government of South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in. He accompanied his mother to a past reunion in 2004, when he was serving in a previous government that sought engagement with North Korea.
But a joint statement by national Red Cross delegations from North and South Korea did not touch on other sensitive issues that have complicated family reunion attempts in recent years. They include North Korea’s demand for the return of 12 North Korean restaurant workers who left China in 2016 and resettled in South Korea. Seoul claims the women willingly defected. South Korea, meanwhile, seeks the return of six people detained in the North.
Nearly 20,000 people have taken part in 20 rounds of reunions held between the countries since 2000, but plans have been shelved in recent years by the South to protest nuclear and missile tests by the regime of Mr. Kim.
At the same time, the urgency for the reunions has grown as the generation that endured the Korean War dwindles.