N. Korea welcomes Trump’s call for ‘new method’ in talks
SEOUL: North Korea has praised President Donald Trump for saying that Washington may pursue an unspecified “new method” in nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang.
Those talks have been stalled for months by disagreements over trade-offs between sanctions relief and disarmament steps.
In a statement released by state media yesterday, North Korean diplomat Kim Myong-gil, who will lead planned working-level talks with Washington, also praised Trump’s decision to fire his hawkish former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who advocated the “Libya model” of unilateral denuclearisation as a template for North Korea.
Myong-gil said he was optimistic about negotiations with the United States, which the North earlier said could resume in a few weeks.
Pyongyang has repeatedly demanded that Washington reconsider its stance following the collapse of a February summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Trump.
“(I) would like to welcome the wise political decision of President Trump to approach the DPRK-US relations from a more practical point of view now that a nasty troublemaker who used to face everything out of his anachronistic way of thinking has disappeared from the US administration,” said Myong-gil, referring to North Korea by its formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Bolton, who North Korea previously described as a “war monger” and “defective human product”, had insisted that the North should follow the Libyan path of denuclearisation by fully eliminating its nuclear programme upfront in a possible deal with the United States.
The 2004 disarmament of Libya is seen by Pyongyang as a deeply provocative comparison since Libyan autocrat Muammar Gaddafi was killed following US-supported military action in his country seven years after giving up a rudimentary nuclear programme that was far less advanced than North Korea’s.
Trump on Wednesday said Bolton’s comments set the United States back “very badly” in talks with the North and that “maybe a new method would be very good”.
Kim said he wasn’t exactly sure what Trump meant by a “new method”, but said a “step-by-step solution starting with the things feasible first while building trust in each other would be the best option”.
Nuclear negotiations have stalled for months following the February summit between Kim and Trump in Vietnam, which broke down after the US side rejected North Korean demands for broad sanctions relief in exchange for a piecemeal deal toward partially surrendering its nuclear capabilities.
The North has demonstrated its displeasure with belligerent rhetoric and a slew of short-range weapons tests that were seen as an attempt to gain leverage ahead of negotiations.