UN backs NKorea shedding nukes
UNITED NATIONS — The United States on Friday welcomed the U.N. Security Council’s support for the fully verified denuclearization of North Korea and pressed China and Russia to strictly enforce U.N. sanctions to get Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused North Korea of violating an array of tough sanctions imposed by the council. He warned that “when sanctions are not enforced, the prospects for the successful denuclearization of North Korea are diminished.”
Nonetheless, Pompeo told reporters after meeting in private with the 15 council members that President Donald Trump “remains upbeat about the prospects for denuclearization” following his historic summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “So do I, as progress is happening,” he added without elaborating.
The Trump administration hopes that one day North Korea will be at the U.N. “not as a pariah but as a friend,” Pompeo said. But “it will take full enforcement of sanctions for us to get there,” and Kim following through “on his personal commitments” to Trump.
At the summit, Trump and Kim agreed to work toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula; they did not describe when and how it would occur.
Follow-up talks this month between Pompeo and North Korean senior officials in Pyongyang had a rocky start, with North Korea accusing the United States of making “unilateral and gangster-like” demands.
Meanwhile, North Korea’s state-run media released a string of articles Friday that criticized the South Korean government, hinting that planned reunions for families split between the two nations could be canceled.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in had told reporters that the world would judge the United States and North Korea if they failed to live up to the agreements their leaders had made.
Separately Friday, two North Korean propaganda websites released articles calling on the South Korean government to repatriate a group of North Korean restaurant workers who defected two years ago in disputed circumstances.
“If our female citizens’ repatriation issue is not resolved as quickly as possible, it could become an obstacle not just to the planned reunions of divided families between the two Koreas but also to overall inter-Korean relations,” wrote Uriminzokkiri, one of the websites.
An article in the state-run online outlet Meari also said that unless the issue of the restaurant workers is resolved soon, it could hinder planned family reunifications.