Pence returning for crisis talks
Vice President Mike Pence is cutting short his trip to Latin America so he can join President Trump at a meeting about North Korea.
The White House announced Wednesday that Pence would return to the U.S. a day early and travel to Camp David with the president on Friday to meet with the White House national security team to discuss South Asia strategy.
The vice president, whose trip is designed to build ties with the region and speak out against the growing crisis in Venezuela, called on Chile to “break all diplomatic and commercial ties” to North Korea.
He said he made the request to Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, and is making the same request of Peru, Mexico and Brazil.
North Korea has no diplomatic offices or banking institutions in Chile, but the two countries do have a trade relationship.
Pence said “we are beginning to see progress” when it comes to North Korea, but says that “much more” must still be done. The Trump administration has been trying to pressure Pyongyang to halt its nuclear and ballistic missile program.
The United States and North Korea are in a tense standoff sparked by Pyongyang’s recent missile tests and threats to fire them toward Guam. Trump last week declared the U.S. military “locked and loaded” and said he was ready to unleash “fire and fury” if North Korea continued to threaten the United States.
On Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that tensions on the Korean peninsula are at their highest level in decades and said it’s important “to dial down the rhetoric and to dial up diplomacy.”
The U.N. chief told reporters the world needs to heed the lessons of history and not repeat the mistakes that led to the Korean War, which started 67 years ago and killed more than 3 million people.