Trump hopes for ‘positive’ from N. Korea

‘Biting’ sanctions improve chances of talks, he says

WASHINGTON – President Trump expressed cautious optimism Tuesday about the prospects of nuclear talks with North Korea after Kim Jong Un’s regime expressed willingness to negotiate, but he said the United States would wait and see how things play out.

“There’s been a lot of news on that today. Hopefully, it’s positive,” Trump said during a joint news conference with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven. “Hopefully, it will lead to a very positive result.”

Earlier, before an Oval Office meeting with Löfven, Trump declined to say whether he would establish preconditions for nuclear talks with North Korea.

The president, who has not ruled out military force if North Korea refuses to give up its nuclear weapons programs, said he would not let the dispute “fester” much longer.

“One way or the other, we have to do something,” Trump said.

Trump again blamed his predecessors for allowing the North Korea nuclear program to grow and credited his own policies for the prospect of talks: Sanctions, he said, “have been very, very strong and biting.”

Trump once admonished his secretary of State for being willing to talk to North Korea, calling the exercise a “waste of time.”

But the president has warmed to the idea, even joking about it over the weekend at a dinner with Washington journalists. “I won’t rule out direct talks with Kim Jong Un. I just won’t,” he said. “As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, that’s his problem, not mine.”

In a tweet earlier Tuesday, Trump said progress was possible but cautioned that the North Korean overtures “may be false hope.” He wrote that “the World is watching and waiting” and that “the U.S. is ready to go hard in either direction!”