How Trump Will Sell US Out Like Obama

How Trump Went From ‘Fire and Fury’ to Dismissing North Korean Nuclear Advances
By Neeti Upadhye
Trump on North Korea: From Foe to Friend
President Trump used to call the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, “rocket man.” But over time, Mr. Trump has changed his tune.Jung Yeon-Je/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By David E. Sanger
• July 4, 2018
WASHINGTON — When the North Koreans were shooting off missile tests and detonating new, more powerful atomic bombs last year, President Trump responded with threats of “fire and fury” and ordered the military to come up with new, if highly risky, pre-emptive strike options.
But since the one-day summit meeting last month in Singapore, Mr. Trump has done an about-face, while the North’s nuclear program has continued. “Many good conversations with North Korea-it is going well!” he wrote Tuesday morning on Twitter.
Even the recent revelations of seemingly modest North Korean progress on missile technology and the production of nuclear fuel — including continued work on a new nuclear reactor that can produce plutonium — have not dimmed Mr. Trump’s enthusiasm. He argues that they mean little compared to the new tone of conversations, and that even though North Korea has not disassembled a single weapon, his mission should be judged a success.
It is that jarring reversal of tone that has led Mr. Trump’s critics to argue that he was taken in by Kim Jong-un, the North’s 34-year-old leader.
Turning the enthusiasm of the meeting in Singapore into a concrete, verifiable agreement is now the job of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is leaving Washington early Thursday for North Korea. It will be his third trip there, but the first to flesh out a timetable and a common understanding of what the Singapore commitment to “work toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” really means.
Complicating the task is this: Mr. Pompeo, a former C.I.A. chief who knows the details of the North Korean program intimately and has solicited plans for how to accomplish his goals, must show that he can get the North Koreans to go far beyond the agreement his predecessor once-removed, John Kerry, achieved in negotiations with Iran. Mr. Trump has called that deal a “disaster” for years and pulled out of it two months ago.
Now, it looms over Mr. Pompeo’s talks.
By engaging Mr. Trump in the process of “denuclearizing” the Korean Peninsula, Mr. Kim may be calculating that the president would not dare walk away — especially after Mr. Trump noted before the summit meeting that “everyone thinks” he should win a Nobel Peace Prize, before modestly adding, “but I would never say it.”
Still, the test missile engine site that Mr. Trump told reporters was being dismantled still stands, satellite pictures show. And the C.I.A., among other agencies, has warned that the North’s strategy may now be to build up abilities that can be traded away later, hoping to maneuver Mr. Trump into accepting the country as a de facto nuclear power, and settle for concessions on the size and reach of Mr. Kim’s nuclear force.
Mr. Trump and his allies say that is nonsense; sanctions remain and Mr. Trump has not flinched from the goal of “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization.”
“There’s not any starry-eyed feeling among the group doing this,” John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, insisted Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” saying that most of the major steps toward denuclearization could be taken in a year. In private, Trump administration officials say, Mr. Bolton’s view is the same as it was before he joined the administration: that the North Koreans will never entirely give up their program.
The big question is whether Mr. Kim is truly ready to change course or playing for time with Mr. Trump — as his father and grandfather did with the past four presidents.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump is in sales mode.
Frustrated by the series of reports that the North is chugging forward, despite its “denuclearization” pledge, Mr. Trump boasted in a tweet on Tuesday that there had been “no Rocket Launches or Nuclear Testing in 8 months. All of Asia is thrilled. Only the Opposition Party, which includes the Fake News, is complaining.”
Then, with a Trumpian flair, he added, “If not for me, we would now be at War with North Korea!”
Mr. Trump is at least partly right: There have been no missile or nuclear tests since November, a freeze that many, including some Democrats, said was a necessary first step. But a freeze and denuclearization are completely different things.
Mr. Kim retains all of his nuclear abilities, and thus his leverage. He can resume testing any time. Just a year ago, Rex W. Tillerson, then the secretary of state, called that position insufficient because it merely perpetuated an ability to strike that Mr. Trump had, until recently, characterized as intolerable.
But it also reveals, in perhaps the most critical national security crisis Mr. Trump faces, his tendency to conflate a good meeting with a good outcome. It is as if President John F. Kennedy, meeting with the Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev for the first time in Vienna in 1961, had declared the Cold War solved. The Cuban missile crisis broke open 16 months later.
Mr. Kim has already accomplished something, too. The heat has been turned down drastically, and the United States has, unilaterally, suspended military exercises with South Korea.
The Obama administration’s Iran agreement shadows Mr. Trump’s talks with the North.
The president regularly calls Iran a major nuclear threat, even though it no longer has enough fuel to make a single nuclear weapon. Under the 2015 agreement, it shipped 97 percent of its nuclear material out of the country. And it never possessed nuclear weapons.
Yet Mr. Trump pulled out after concluding that the United States gave away too much in return for an agreement that would gradually allow the Iranians to resume production around 2030.
The stark contrast between how Mr. Trump talks about Tehran, while insisting that the North is “no longer a nuclear threat,” will become harder and harder to sustain if Mr. Pompeo cannot get Mr. Kim on a rapid denuclearization schedule.
And Mr. Pompeo will need to achieve an inspection regime that provides assurance — not only to intelligence agencies but also to the public in South Korea, Japan and the United States — that the North is not hiding weapons, missiles or production facilities. The C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency believe that, today, it is hiding all three. So far, Mr. Pompeo has said nothing about the details he intends to present, and Mr. Bolton suggested that stories about new intelligence on the North’s improving its nuclear abilities only imperiled the diplomatic process. As a television commentator and columnist, Mr. Bolton often repeated similar reports when it came to building his case about how to deal with Pyongyang and Tehran.
One thing is clear, however: The Trump administration has not uttered the phrase “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization” in weeks, and Mr. Pompeo has also softened his tone. Some administration officials say that South Korea urged getting rid of the everything-must-be-dismantled-immediately approach. And South Korean officials say that while Mr. Kim might not surrender his entire program anytime soon, he might dismantle parts of it, reducing his readiness to go to war.
“Perhaps the biggest diplomatic problem the U.S. will face, if we can get North Korea to agree to fully denuclearize, will be the timing of that denuclearization and how we verify the component steps,” William Perry, the former defense secretary under President Bill Clinton, wrote this week in Politico Magazine.
Mr. Perry, who negotiated repeatedly with the North, cautioned that “these steps will be complex, will take many months, if not years, and will require intrusive verification procedures.”
“But the U.S. has negotiated agreements equally difficult with the Soviet Union, so we do have a positive precedent,” he wrote.

North Korea Nuclear Program Done In One Year

‘North Korea nuclear programme could be gone within a year,’ according to security adviser John Bolton

US national security adviser John Bolton. Photo: AFP

 

White House national security adviser John Bolton said on Sunday he believed the bulk of North Korea’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes could be dismantled within a year.
Bolton told CBS’s Face the Nation that Washington has devised a programme to dismantle North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes in a year.
“If they have the strategic decision already made to do that and they’re cooperative, we can move very quickly,” he said. “Physically we would be able to dismantle the overwhelming bulk of their programmes within a year.”
He said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will likely discuss that proposal with the North Koreans soon. The Financial Times reported that Pompeo was due to visit North Korea this week but Reuters has not been able to confirm his travel plans.
North Korea agreed at the summit to “work toward denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula,” but the joint statement signed by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US, President Donald Trump gave no details on how or when Pyongyang might surrender its nuclear weapons.
Pompeo told reporters the day after the Singapore summit on June 12 that Washington hoped to achieve “major disarmament” by North Korea within Trump’s current term, which ends on January 20, 2021.
Bolton said the United States was going into nuclear negotiations aware of Pyongyang’s failure to live up to its promises in the past.
“We know exactly what the risks are – them using negotiations to drag out the length of time they have to continue their nuclear, chemical, biological weapons programmes and ballistic missiles,” he said.
“There’s not any starry-eyed feeling among the group doing this,” he said. “We’re well aware of what the North Koreans have done in the past.”

Later, appearing on Fox News, Bolton defended Trump’s decision to hold a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki this month as a way to get beyond the “political noise” that has consumed Washington over the ongoing investigation of Russian election interference.
Bolton said the summit would be “somewhat unstructured” especially during the leaders’ one-on-one time, to avoid “the pressure of immediate deadlines or crises”.
“He wants to understand the Russian position, but, more importantly, he wants Putin to understand our position,” Bolton said. “Let them discuss these issues and see exactly where there might be room for progress or where we find there is no room at all.”
Trump is scheduled to meet with Putin on July 16, several days after he stops in Brussels for a Nato summit. The president has been critical of Nato, suggesting that other member nations do not contribute enough to the alliance and that the United States carries too much of the burden.
Bolton dismissed a question about whether Trump has been more willing to criticise US allies than authoritarian leaders of rival nations, including Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. Trump feuded with G7 leaders during a summit in Canada last month over trade, abruptly dropping support for a routine joint statement. The president also suggested that Russia, which was kicked out of the group after it annexed Crimea in 2014, be invited back into the organisation.
“I don’t read the way he conducted these meetings the same way,” Bolton told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace. “I don’t think anybody ought to have a case of the vapours over discussions we have in Nato or the G7 versus discussions we have with Putin or Kim Jong-un. They’re very, very different; the president treats them differently. He understands what the strategic interests are, and that’s what he’s trying to pursue.”
Although US intelligence officials have stated unequivocally that Russian agents sought to influence the 2016 presidential election, Trump has continued to cast doubt on those conclusions. Last summer, during his first one-on-one meeting with Putin, in Hamburg, Trump said that he questioned him about the interference accusations and that the Russian leader denied it.

How Korea Will Aid the Iranian Nuclear Horn (Daniel 8:4)

US intelligence officials: North Korea will sell nuclear tech to Iran

Harry J. Kazianis, opinion contributor

 

While the Trump administration is still touting its supposedly successful summit with North Korea — even claiming that Pyongyang is “no longer a nuclear threat” — senior U.S. intelligence officials worry that a new security challenge is emerging: that the Kim regime could sell advanced, long-range ICBM missile technology to rogue states like Iran.
According to two intelligence officials, speaking to me on background, there is a growing concern that while the immediate threat of armed conflict with North Korea has diminished, Pyongyang could utilize the lull in tensions to its advantage, selling the know-how behind its most advanced weapons systems to Tehran. The officials, unauthorized to speak on the matter, asked for their identities to be protected.

“We know for a fact that North Korea will sell almost any of its military hardware if the price is right — and Iran has paid that price time and time again. In the past, there is ample evidence — even in the public domain — that proves North Korea will sell conventional weapons, all different types of missile technology, and even nuclear tech and expertise if you have the funds to pay for it,” explained a senior U.S. intelligence official.

The official continued:

“What terrifies many of us is that we might not even know that Pyongyang has even sold such technology until it's too late to do anything about it. Think about how much information you can store on just a flash drive today. All it would take is one North Korean agent, selling a 256-gig USB stick to an Iranian operative filled with blueprints, design specs and advanced warhead shielding technology to make a massive difference.
"Just that amount of information on ICBM technology alone would be a game changer for Tehran — and we would not even know about it until the new designs were included in their missile tests.”

History shows the intelligence officials' fears could very well be realized — and soon. North Korea has sold arms to some of the world’s most anti-U.S. regimes and fueled conflicts around the world.
For example, Pyongyang has reportedly helped Syria with its chemical weapons and missile programs. North Korea even started building a nuclear reactor for the Assad regime, only to see it be destroyed by an Israeli air strike in 2007. There is strong evidence to suggest North Korea is selling conventional arms to the regime now and possibly even fighting alongside Assad’s forces, fueling a civil war that has claimed countless lives to this day.
It gets worse. The Kim family has sold multiple classes of missile platforms to Iran. And, now that the Kim family has missiles that can at least range the U.S. homeland, combined with biting sanctions that are damaging the regime's ability to raise vital revenue, Pyongyang might just be desperate enough to sell its best weaponry, even if it were to damage its budding détente with Washington.
Another senior intelligence official, also speaking on background, had another assessment: “It will be just a matter of time before North Korea sells this stuff (ICBM technology) to Iran. We need to prepare for this as it might even already have happened. I want to stress I have no proof of that, but what would you do if your nation was being hurt by sanctions and you can cause America and its allies some pain?”
There is ample reason to think Iran would indeed love to acquire such technology. If the Iran Nuclear Deal does completely fall apart, or even if Tehran abides by its provisions with willing non-U.S. partners, acquiring such advanced missile technology — which is not prohibited under the terms of the deal — would be a smart strategic move.
Iran would be able to spend the next several years designing, testing and perfecting such missile technology. Knowing that it could take an expensive, long-term effort, Tehran could honor its nuclear agreement with Europe, Russia and China until 2025 — when Iran could legally leave the agreement — and use those years to perfect a working ICBM that it could then use as the delivery system for a nuclear weapon.
Considering even the sheer possibility of such a nightmare scenario, the Trump administration, in whatever deal it is trying to craft with North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, should include a provision that Pyongyang would not be able to sell any missile technology, know-how or allow its scientists to work on other nations' missile programs — at a bare minimum. Washington also should demand a full accounting of any missile sales to foreign powers like Iran, so we can gain a better understanding of what other problems Pyongyang might have created.
But such thoughts might be just wishful thinking. Considering that U.S. intelligence officials believe North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons anyway, we might very well face the Kim regime’s most terrifying weapons of war in a future conflict — but they might be fired by someone else.
Harry J. Kazianis (@grecianformula) is director of Defense Studies at the Center for the National Interest, founded in 1994 by President Richard M. Nixon, and executive editor of its publishing arm, The National Interest. Kazianis previously served on the foreign policy team of the 2016 Ted Cruz presidential campaign. He has held positions as foreign policy communications manager at the Heritage Foundation, editor-in-chief of The Diplomat, as well as a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The views voiced in this article are his own.

Why North Korea is Willing to Negotiate with Trump

US Admits N. Korea, Maybe Iran, Can Now Target it with EMP-Nukes

Contact Editor Mark Langfan, 12/04/15 13:19 Share

Iran's Revolutionary Guards fire a Saegheh missile - Reuters

In a blockbuster admission, Admiral Bill Gortney, Commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) disclosed that the Pentagon now believes North Korea has mastered the ability to miniaturize its nuclear bombs so they can be fitted onto their latest mobile KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which are capable of reaching the continental United States.
At the news conference, Adm. Gortney flatly stated, Pyongyang has “the ability to put a nuclear weapon on a KN-08 and shoot it at the homeland [the continental United States].” He expressed confidence that the US could knock down such a missile if launched by North Korea or its ally, Iran.
He also admitted, however, that it is “very difficult” for the US to counter the threat, because its intelligence is unable to follow the mobile ICBMs and give an efficient warning before they are launched.
The admission was accompanied by the announcement that NORAD is reopening its nuclear-EMP-proof Cheyenne Mountain bunker.
The KN-08 is a road-capable, highly mobile ICBM, which can be hidden anywhere throughout the North Korea and could be fired on a short-countdown virtually undetectable by American intelligence. As Adm. Gortney further explained about the North’s KN-08 ICBM, “It’s the relocatable [highly-mobile, can go anywhere – ML] target set that really impedes our ability to find, fix, and finish the [KN-08] threat. And as the [KN-08] targets move around and if we don’t have a persistent stare [i.e., the ability to monitor its location at all times - ML] and persistent [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] that we do not have over North Korea at this time, that relocatable nature makes it very difficult for us to be able to counter it.”
Despite Adm. Gortney’s concerns, he still believes that if a KN-08 was fired at the US homeland, in the Admiral’s words – “Should one get airborne and come at us [the US homeland], I’m confident we would be able to knock it down.”
Even if this is true, it is not clear if the US ballistic defense could knock down an incoming North Korean ICBM in time, if the nuke is intended as an EMP weapon, which explodes soon after re-entering the atmosphere.
System can defend against Iran strike, too 
In another dramatic revelation, Adm. Gortney revealed that America’s anti-missile missile shield is not only configured to repulse a North Korean missile, but an Iranian ICBM as well. The Admiral explained that the current assessment is that the threat of an ICBM EMP strike comes from North Korea and not from Iran, but that the system could handle both scenarios. “Our system is designed for North Korea, and if we get our assessment wrong, for Iran. Its [the US homeland missile shield] is designed to defend the nation [the homeland] against both those particular threats today,” he said.
Experts have estimated that the KN-08 has a range of 5,600 miles and would be capable of hitting the US’s west coast if launched from North Korea. Experts also believe the missile is not accurate.
However, Adm. Gortney’s statement about North Korea’s nuke-capable KN-08 ICBM must be taken in the context of his simultaneous announcement of the Pentagon’s concern about an EMP-missile strike on the United States homeland.
South Korean intelligence has long believed that North Korea has been developing an EMP-nuclear device. As early as June 2009, Kim Myong Chol, who was an “unofficial” spokesperson of the then-Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il, openly threatened use of a “high-altitude detonation of hydrogen bombs that would create a powerful electromagnetic pulse” bomb.” And, in November of 2013, South Korea’s intelligence service (NIS) issued a report to the South Korean parliament that North Korea had “purchased Russian electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weaponry to develop its own version” of a nuclear EMP device.
EMP strike on South Korea?
In 2005, then-USAF Major Colin Miller posited, in a public-domain US Air Force University thesis, that the North Koreans could tactically use a nuclear-EMP weapon on the Korean Peninsula to “level-the playing field” against the electronic dependent forces of the United States and South Korea.
The tactical North Korean EMP “decapitation” attack would likely bag as POWs the 40,000 living US marines now guarding South Korea because an EMP doesn’t kill human beings, only electronics.
A tactical nuclear-EMP aimed at South Korea would not need an ICBM to reach the 30-50 km level above the earth to explode. Rather, it would only need a much smaller short-range missile to achieve its suitable EMP-location above the Korean peninsula for an effective EMP detonation.
Given the degree of cooperation between the Islamic Republic of Iran and North Korea, it is highly likely that any nuclear-EMP-technology mastered by North Korea has already been shared with Iran. Therefore, the EMP-proliferation danger from North Korea to Iran is a catastrophic danger.
North Korea has been threatening a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the US for two years, as explained in this ABC News report from 2013. At the time of the report, North Korea was said to be "years away" from a developing a missile that could hit the US: These "years" have apparently passed.
And yet, inexplicably, US President Barack Obama is currently negotiating a deal with Iran that he himself has admitted would enable it to manufacture its own nuclear weapons, 12-13 years after it is signed. 
Gil Ronen contributed to this report.

North Korea Prepares to Make a Deal

North Korea monitors claim nuclear test site dismantling has begun

 

By Joshua Berlinger, CNN

 

Satellite images from DigitalGlobe and 38 North on May 7 show support buildings at the Main Administrative Area have been taken down at North Korea's Punggye-ri nuclear test site.

(CNN)Satellite images appear to show North Korea is shuttering its nuclear test site, according to analysts from North Korean monitoring site 38 North.

Analysis published Monday claims photographs taken May 7 show some of the buildings at the site have been razed. Some rails for the mining carts, which are needed to dig tunnels, have also been removed, the 38 North piece claims.

Some key facilities remain intact and the tunnel entrances remain open, however. The authors speculate that may be because they'll be blown up in front of members of the international media later this month.

 

Satellite imagery from Digital Globe and 38 North no activity at the Command Center support area of North Korea's Punggye-ri nuclear test site.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry announced over the weekend it would invite journalists to watch the site's shuttering as early as May 23.

 

 

The 38 North analysis was written by a former International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear chief inspector and long-time North Korea defense analyst.

Analysts at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) shared with CNN satellite images that appear to show the North Koreans taking down facilities at Punggye-ri.

 

If accurate, the analysis of the images appears to show that North Korea has taken concrete steps to dismantle the Punggye-ri nuclear test site. The country's leader, Kim Jong Un, pledged last month to refrain from conducting nuclear tests and close Punggye-ri, which is located fewer than 100 miles from North Korea's border with China.

The country also vowed to stop testing missiles without notifying the international community Saturday.

 

The move is another notable step in North Korea's diplomatic charm offensive, which comes after a year of constant weapons testing and heated rhetoric between Washington and Pyongyang.

Kim met South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the heavily militarized border that divides the two Koreas in late April and will hold a summit with US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June, the first ever meeting between a sitting US president and North Korean leader.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said it is monitoring the developments at Punggye-ri closely, deputy spokesman Lee Jin-woo said at a news conference.

"North Korea has announced the dismantling of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, so we assess that they will do preparatory work according to the planned schedule," he said.

In their findings published Friday, the analysts at CNS speculated that Pyongyang may be trying to remove sensitive information form the site. In the same piece, the authors also reported the construction of a new structure at the end of April, but at a different site that has been involved in the production or modification of launchers for its long-range ballistic missiles.

 

Some in the international community believe Kim's commitment to close Punggye-ri is a welcome development. Last month, President Trump called the North's decision to suspend missile and nuclear tests "very good news."

But it's also possible North Korea no longer needs the site. After a half dozens tests over a period of more than a decade, some experts believe that Pyongyang is far enough along in its nuclear weapons development that it no longer has to detonate bombs underground to move its program along.

 

Others have speculated that the tests have significantly damaged the underground facility. Chinese geologists claimed in a study the cavity caused by last September's nuclear test collapsed shortly after the detonation, causing a powerful tremor.

That test was the country's most powerful to date, believed to be more than ten times more powerful than its test the previous year.

However, analysts say the last five nuclear tests were all conducted using the same tunnel, and that although that tunnel may be damaged beyond repair, the North Koreans could dig others for potential future tests.

38 North observed late last year what it described as "significant tunneling operations" at a portal that has yet to be used.

North Korea Prepares to Denuclearize

North Korea details plans to dismantle nuclear bomb test site
Christine Kim
SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea has scheduled the dismantlement of its nuclear bomb test site for sometime between May 23 and 25 in order to uphold its pledge to discontinue nuclear tests, the country’s state media reported on Saturday a month ahead of a historic summit.
The official Korean Central New Agency said dismantlement of the Punggye-ri nuclear test ground would involve collapsing all of its tunnels with explosions, blocking its entrances, and removing all observation facilities, research buildings and security posts.
“The Nuclear Weapon Institute and other concerned institutions are taking technical measures for dismantling the northern nuclear test ground ... in order to ensure transparency of discontinuance of the nuclear test,” KCNA said.
U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will hold talks in Singapore on June 12, the first-ever meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.
Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday that North Korea can look forward to “a future brimming with peace and prosperity” if it agrees to quickly give up its nuclear weapons.
Trump welcomed the North Korean announcement.
“North Korea has announced that they will dismantle Nuclear Test Site this month, ahead of the big Summit Meeting on June 12th,” he tweeted. “Thank you, a very smart and gracious gesture! Thank you, a very smart and gracious gesture!”
South Korea’s presidential office echoed the sentiment on Sunday, saying it shows Pyongyang’s willingness to denuclearize through actions beyond words.
However, in spite of its pledge to stop testing, North Korea has given no indication it is willing to go beyond statements of broad conceptual support for denuclearization by unilaterally abandoning a nuclear weapons program its ruling family has seen as crucial to its survival.
In announcing the plan to shut Punggye-ri last month, Kim said North Korea no longer needed to conduct tests because it had completed its goal of developing nuclear weapons.
KCNA said journalists, including from the United States and South Korea, would be invited to cover the event, to “show in a transparent manner the dismantlement of the northern nuclear test ground to be carried out”. The exact date of the closure will depend on weather conditions, the agency said.
To accommodate the traveling journalists, North Korea said various measures would be taken including “opening territorial air space”.
NO MENTION OF EXPERTS
South Korean officials said in April that North Korea also planned to invite experts from the United States and South Korea for the Punggye-ri shutdown, but KCNA made no mention of this.
Last month, South Korean President Moon Jae-in had asked the United Nations to help verify the shutdown.
South Korea’s deputy nuclear envoy Jeong Yeon-doo will visit the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna this week to discuss the “complete denuclearization of North Korea” the foreign ministry said on Sunday.
All of North Korea’s six known nuclear bomb tests have taken place at Punggye-ri, in the northeastern of North Korea where a system of tunnels have been dug under Mount Mantap.
According to Chinese academic reports, North Korea’s most recent nuclear test in September of what Pyongyang said was a hydrogen bomb, was so large it triggered a collapse inside the mountain, rendering the entire site unusable for future tests.
But U.S. intelligence officials have said it remains usable and could be reactivated “in a relatively short period of time” if it was closed.
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at California’s Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said in a blog post this week that recent satellite images had shown the removal of some buildings from the site.
On Saturday, he told Reuters that closure of Punggye-ri did not mean much in terms of disarmament, given that the United States, for example, stopped nuclear testing in 1992.
“It would, however, require North Korea to clear out the test tunnels and rebuild any infrastructure that might be removed — or dig new tunnels at the site or elsewhere. So, it’s a good confidence building measure, but not necessarily a sign of irreversible disarmament.”
Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States and a leading expert on North Korea’s nuclear program, said collapsing the Punggye-ri tunnels would be “a big and positive step,” given his belief that North Korea still required more nuclear and missile tests to reach the U.S. mainland with a nuclear-tipped missile.
However, he said the other crucial steps North Korea needed to take to demilitarize its nuclear program were to shut its plutonium production reactor, and open its uranium processing to inspection.
Reporting by Christine Kim and David Brunnstrom; Additional reporting by Lucia Mutikani in WASHINGTON and Joori Roh in SEOUL; Editing by Alistair Bell & Simon Cameron-Moore

North Korea Prepares to Secure Nuclear Deal

North Korea to Destroy Nuclear Test Site before US Summit
Prior to scheduled summit between the US and North Korean leaders in June, Pyongyang vowed on Saturday to destroy its nuclear test site later this month.
The display at Punggye-ri, in the northwest of the country will be open to foreign media.
The event marks another step in leader Kim Jong Un's charm offensive. A ceremony scheduled between May 23-25, weather permitting, said the foreign ministry.
The journalists will be provided with a charter flight from Beijing to the North Korean coastal city of Wonsan, from where they will travel by train to the test site.
The ministry said the North will continue to "promote close contacts and dialogue with the neighboring countries and the international society so as to safeguard peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and over the globe."
Dialogue brokered by Seoul has seen US-North Korea relations go from trading personal insults and threats of war last year to a summit between Kim and President Donald Trump due in Singapore on June 12.
But skeptics warn that Pyongyang has yet to make any public commitment to give up its arsenal, which includes missiles capable of reaching the United States.
Washington is seeking the "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization" of the North and stresses that verification will be key.
Punggye-ri has hosted all six of the North's nuclear tests, the latest and by far the most powerful in September last year, which Pyongyang said was an H-bomb.
Kim has declared the development of the North's nuclear force complete and that it had no further need for the site.
The latest measures will see the tunnels of the test site blown up and their entrances completely blocked, Pyongyang's foreign ministry said, according to the official KCNA news agency.
All observation facilities and research institutes would be removed, along with guards, it said, "and the surrounding area of the test ground be completely closed".
Reporters from China, Russia, the United States, Britain and South Korea would be allowed to cover the event on site to show it "in a transparent manner".
Limits on foreign journalists were due to space constraints, it said, as the site was in an "uninhabited deep mountain area".
Analysts said the move was positive but limited in its scope.
It was "not bad, but a cost-free signal", tweeted MIT political science professor Vipin Narang.
Given the stage it had already reached, Pyongyang "may feel like they don't need to test anything for a while", he said.
Jeffrey Lewis, of the Middlebury Institute for International Studies, expected that the North "will sanitize the site before letting anyone see it".
North Korea has invited the outside world to witness the dismantling of its nuclear facilities before.
In June 2008, international broadcasters were allowed to air the demolishing of a cooling tower at the Nyongbyon reactor site, a year after the North reached an agreement with the US and four other nations to disable its nuclear facilities in return for an aid package worth about $400 million.
But in September 2008, the North declared that it would resume reprocessing plutonium, complaining that Washington wasn't fulfilling its promise to remove the country from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The administration of George W. Bush removed North Korea from the list in October 2008 after the country agreed to continue disabling its nuclear plant. However, a final attempt by Bush to complete an agreement to fully dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program collapsed that December when the North refused to accept US-proposed verification methods.
The North went on to conduct its second nuclear test in May 2009.

North Korea Makes More Nuclear Concessions

North Korea promises to dismantle its nuclear test site in public view, South says

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TOKYO — The South Korean government is trying to keep up the momentum in diplomatic efforts to resolve the North Korean nuclear question, announcing Sunday that the North would dismantle its main nuclear test site next month and that its leader, Kim Jong Un, was prepared to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The South’s presidential Blue House also revealed a symbolic step of goodwill from Kim: North Korea would move its clock forward half an hour to return to the same time zone as Seoul and Tokyo.
This came two days after a historic summit between South Korea’s Moon Jae-in and Kim, which resulted in a joint statement containing a vague agreement to work toward the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula.
Kim pledged to dismantle the nuclear test site at Punggye-ri, in the north of his country, in May, a Blue House spokesman said Sunday.
“Some say that we are terminating facilities that are not functioning, but you will see that we have two more tunnels that are bigger than the existing ones and that they are in good condition,” Moon’s chief press secretary, Yoon Young-chan, quoted Kim as saying.
There have been reports that the test site, buried under Mount Mantap, was suffering from “tired mountain syndrome” and was unusable after September’s huge test, which caused an earthquake so big that satellites caught images of the mountain above the site actually moving.
But numerous nuclear experts have cast doubt on that theory, and Kim apparently did, too.
Kim said he would invite security experts and journalists to the North to observe the closure of the site, Yoon said.
In Washington, national security adviser John Bolton said the Trump administration isn’t “starry-eyed” about Kim’s promises. The United States, he said on “Fox News Sunday,” isn’t ready to ease sanctions or offer other concessions to North Korea before Pyongyang fully commits to denuclearization.
The White House, though, continues to prepare for an upcoming meeting between Trump and Kim, and Bolton said Sunday that the details are being negotiated.
“We need to agree on a place, and that remains an issue,” he said. “But if, in fact, Kim has made a strategic decision to give up his entire nuclear weapons program, then I think deciding on the place and the date should be fairly easy.”
There are other issues, Bolton said, that the administration wants to press soon, if not immediately: “ballistic missiles, chemical and biological weapons, the American hostages, the Japanese abductees.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in an interview Sunday with ABC News, also brought up the issue of three Americans who are being held by North Korea. Pompeo, who secretly met with Kim in North Korea over Easter weekend, said while on a visit to Israel on Sunday that Kim would not be alarmed about American intentions even if the Trump administration withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal.
This is not the first time North Korea has invited outside experts to witness the shutdown of some aspect of its nuclear program. In 2008, Pyongyang invited international journalists to film the destruction of the cooling tower at the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, from which it had been harvesting plutonium to make its first bombs.
It turned out that North Korea was building a separate uranium enrichment facility so it could continue to produce fissile material even without Yongbyon.
Kim reportedly said while meeting with Moon that he had no intention of using his nuclear weapons against neighboring countries.
“Although I am inherently resistant toward America, people will see that I am not the kind of person who fires nukes at South Korea, the Pacific or America,” Kim said during the summit, Yoon told reporters Sunday.
“Why would we keep nuclear weapons and live in a difficult condition if we often meet with Americans to build trust and they promise us to end the war and not to invade us?” Yoon quoted Kim as saying.
That will be viewed as disingenuous, to say the least, given that Kim’s representatives and North Korean state media outlets repeatedly threatened last year to fire nuclear-tipped missiles at the United States and to detonate a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific.
But this is a new year, and Kim, in a strong position having obtained demonstrably functional nuclear weapons and missiles, appears ready to deal.
Kim also said he would turn the clocks forward in North Korea to put them back in sync with South Korea and Japan, Yoon said.
In 2015, on Aug. 15 — the day the Koreas mark their independence from Japan’s colonial rule — the Kim regime put the clocks back half an hour to create the “Pyongyang time” zone. It framed the decision as a rebuke to Japan.
South Korea’s progressive president wants to use his summit with Kim as a springboard to improve Pyongyang’s relations with Tokyo and, particularly, with Washington.
Moon and President Trump spoke on the phone for 75 minutes on Saturday night Seoul time and agreed that South Korea and the United States should continue to closely coordinate “so that the planned U.S.-North Korea summit generates an agreement on concrete measures to realize complete denuclearization,” the Blue House spokesman said.
Trump tweeted afterward that he “had a long and very good talk with President Moon of South Korea.”
“Things are going very well, time and location of meeting with North Korea is being set,” Trump wrote. “Also spoke to Prime Minister Abe of Japan to inform him of the ongoing negotiations.”
Moon also spoke with Abe over the weekend and “offered to lay a bridge between North Korea and Japan,” another Blue House spokesman said.
Moon and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang are expected to meet in Tokyo for a trilateral meeting with Abe — a significant breakthrough in the frosty relations in the region — on May 9.
Moon will then travel to Washington for a meeting with Trump about the latter’s summit with Kim, expected to take place at the end of May or beginning of June.
Influential members of Congress expressed some doubts Sunday about relations with North Korea.
“A lot of what they are agreeing to now, they have agreed to in the past. And as it has turned out, they have something very different in mind when they talk about denuclearization,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, during an appearance on ABC News’s “This Week.”
Speaking on CNN, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said he would not have described Kim as “honorable,” as Trump did last week after months of mocking the North Korean leader.
“I think [Trump] is better to be able to just call him ‘rocket man’ and to be able to stick with that than honorable, just because he is a ruthless dictator that does public executions of anyone who disagrees,” Lankford, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told “State of the Union.”
Tony Romm in Washington and Carol Morello in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.

Korea Sees Light at the End of the Tunnel

North Korea’s nuclear test site has collapsed ... and that may be why Kim Jong-un suspended tests

A man in Seoul watches a TV news program reporting a North Korea nuclear test. Photo: AP

 

North Korea’s mountain nuclear test site has collapsed, putting China and other nearby nations at unprecedented risk of radioactive exposure, two separate groups of Chinese scientists studying the issue have confirmed.
The collapse after five nuclear blasts may be why North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared on Friday that he would freeze the hermit state’s nuclear and missile tests and shut down the site, one researcher said. 
The last five of Pyongyang’s six nuclear tests have all been carried out under Mount Mantap at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in North Korea’s northwest.
One group of researchers found that the most recent blast tore open a hole in the mountain, which then collapsed upon itself. A second group concluded that the breakdown created a “chimney” that could allow radioactive fallout from the blast zone below to rise into the air.
A research team led by Wen Lianxing, a geologist with the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, concluded that the collapse occurred following the detonation last autumn of North Korea’s most powerful thermal nuclear warhead in a tunnel about 700 metres (2,296 feet) below the mountain’s peak.
The test turned the mountain into fragile fragments, the researchers found.
The mountain’s collapse, and the prospect of radioactive exposure in the aftermath, confirms a series of exclusive reports by the South China Morning Post on China’s fears that Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test had caused a fallout leak.
Radioactive dust could escape through holes or cracks in the damaged mountain, the scientists said.
“It is necessary to continue monitoring possible leaks of radioactive materials caused by the collapse incident,” Wen’s team said in the statement.
The findings will be published on the website of the peer-reviewed journal, Geophysical Research Letters, likely next month.
North Korea saw the mountain as an ideal location for underground nuclear experiments because of its elevation – it stood more than 2,100 metres (6,888 feet) above sea level – and its terrain of thick, gentle slopes that seemed capable of resisting structural damage.

North Korea suspends nuclear and missile tests

The mountain’s surface had shown no visible damage after four underground nuclear tests before 2017.
But the 100-kilotonne bomb that went off on September 3 vaporised surrounding rocks with unprecedented heat and opened a space that was up to 200 metres (656 feet) in diameter, according to a statement posted on the Wen team’s website on Monday.
As shock waves tore through and loosened more rocks, a large section of the mountain’s ridge, less than half a kilometre (0.3 mile) from the peak, slipped down into the empty pocket created by the blast, leaving a scar visible in satellite images.
Wen concluded that the mountain had collapsed after analysing data collected from nearly 2,000 seismic stations.

Kim Jong-un boasts of ‘death-defying struggle’ to build arsenal

Three small earthquakes that hit nearby regions in the wake of the collapse added credence to his conclusion, suggesting the test site had lost its geological stability.
Another research team led by Liu Junqing at the Jilin Earthquake Agency with the China Earthquake Administration in Changchun reached similar conclusions to the Wen team.
The “rock collapse … was for the first time documented in North Korea’s test site,” Liu’s team wrote in a paper published last month in Geophysical Research Letters.
The breakdown not only took off part of the mountain’s summit but also created a “chimney” that could allow fallout to rise from the blast centre into the air, they said.

North Korea nuclear test site has signs of ‘Tired Mountain Syndrome’ after five blasts

Zhao Lianfeng, a researcher with the Institute of Earth Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said the two studies supported a consensus among scientists that “the site was wrecked” beyond repair.
“Their findings are in agreement to our observations,” he said.
“Different teams using different data have come up with similar conclusions,” Zhao said. “The only difference was in some technical details. This is the best guess that can be made by the world outside.”

Speculation grew that North Korea’s site was in trouble when Lee Doh-sik, the top North Korean geologist, visited Zhao’s institute about two weeks after the test and met privately with senior Chinese government geologists.
US reveals how its forces would secure North Korea’s nuclear sites
Although the purpose of Lee’s visit was not disclosed, two days later PHu Xingdou, a Beijing-based scholar who follows North Korea’s nuclear programme, said it was highly likely that Pyongyang had received a stark warning from Beijing.

Are North Korean quakes signs of instability at nuclear test site?

“The test was not only destabilising the site but increasing the risk of eruption of the Changbai Mountain,” a large, active volcano at China-Korean border, said Hu, who asked that his university affiliation not be disclosed for this article because of the topic’s sensitivity.
The mountain’s collapse has likely dealt a huge blow to North Korea’s nuclear programme, Hu said.
Hit by crippling international economic sanctions over its nuclear ambitions, the country might lack sufficient resources to soon resume testing at a new site, he said.

North Korea told its people Kim Jong-un visited China, but didn't mention denuclearisation

“But there are other sites suitable for testing,” Hu said. “They must be closely monitored.”
Guo Qiuju, a Peking University professor who has belonged to a panel that has advised the Chinese government on emergency responses to radioactive hazards, said that if fallout escaped through cracks, it could be carried by wind over the Chinese border.
“So far we have not detected an abnormal increase of radioactivity levels,” Guo said. “But we will continue to monitor the surrounding region with a large [amount] of highly sensitive equipment and analyse the data in state-of-the-art laboratories.”
Zhao Guodong, a government nuclear waste confinement specialist at the University of South China, said that the North Korean government should allow scientists from China and other countries to enter the test site and evaluate the damage.

Was North Korea to blame for radiation spike in north China city?

“We can put a thick layer of soil on top of the collapsed site, fill the cracks with special cement, or remove the pollutants with chemical solution,” he said.
“There are many methods to deal with the problem. All they need [to do] is ask.”

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: nuclear test site has collapsed, studies confirm

Making the Deal with North Korea

Trump Says North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un Has Been ‘Very Open’ and ‘Very Honorable’ Ahead of Nuclear Talk

By Gillian Edevane On 4/24/18 at 1:40 PM

 

President Donald Trump on Tuesday called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "very honorable" and said he thinks a meeting with the dictator will happen "as soon as possible."
"He really has been very open and, I think, very honorable from everything we're seeing," Trump told a group of reporters during a brief question-and-answer period at the White House with French President Emmanuel Macron. "A lot of promises have been made by North Korea over the years, but they've never been in this position. We have been very, very tough on maximum pressure, we've been very tough on trade.…"
Trump added that he would be forceful during the planned meeting with North Korea, which is supposed to happen in late May or early June, and would be prepared to walk away.
"I will leave the table," he said. "But I think we have the chance to do something very special."
In a break from previous administrations, Trump is attempting to negotiate with the dictator and convince him to end his fledgling nuclear program. Both Trump and the North Korean leader have traded barbs in the past, with Trump calling Kim a "Little Rocket Man" and a "sick puppy." In turn, Kim reportedly called Trump "mentally deranged" and a "dotard."
"Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn't mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before!" Trump tweeted in September, referring to numerous reports of abuses inflicted on the North Korean people by the government.
Trump has previously said that no sanctions will be lifted until "concrete actions" have been made in the path to denuclearization. Kim has pledged to suspend nuclear and missile tests ahead of the meeting.
Despite the apparent signs of progress, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday cautioned that there’s still a “long way to go” in negotiating with Kim.
"Look, we’re not naïve in this process," she said at the White House press briefing. "We've seen some steps in the right direction but we have a long way to go.”
President Donald Trump, pictured here at a 2017 "MAGA" rally in Phoenix, has tempered his remarks about Kim Jong Un ahead of nuclear talks with the North Korean leader. Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

Seoul: N. Korean Leader Prepares to Denuclearize

Seoul: N. Korean leader removes major nuclear sticking point
The Associated Press
In this Wednesday, April 11, 2018, photo, South Korean army soldiers stand guard at the border villages of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea. U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday, April 17, has given his "blessing" for North and South Korea to discuss the end of the Korean War at their summit next week amid a diplomatic push to end the North Korean nuclear standoff. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)more +
South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Thursday that his rival, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, isn't asking for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula as a precondition for abandoning his nuclear weapons. If true, this would seem to remove a major sticking point to a potential nuclear disarmament deal.
North Korea, a small, authoritarian nation surrounded by bigger and richer neighbors, has always linked its pursuit of nuclear weapons to what it calls a "hostile" U.S. policy that is embodied by the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, the 50,000 stationed in Japan, and the "nuclear umbrella" security guarantee that Washington offers allies Seoul and Tokyo.
Although Moon reported that North Korea isn't asking for the U.S. troops to leave, he said the North still wants the United States to end its "hostile" policy and offer security guarantees. When North Korea has previously talked about "hostility" it has been linked to the U.S. troops in South Korea.
It won't be until Moon and Kim meet next week, and then when Kim is to meet U.S. President Donald Trump sometime in May or June, that outsiders might know just what North Korea intends. Until then, caution is needed over the statements the various leaders are using to set up their high-stakes negotiations.
Moon and Kim's summit on April 27 will be only the third such meeting between the countries' leaders. Moon, a liberal who is committed to engaging the North despite being forced to take a hard line in the face of repeated North Korean weapons tests last year, is eager to make the summit a success and pave the way for Kim and Trump to settle the deep differences they have over the North's decades-long pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Many analysts believe that Kim sees the meeting with Trump as a way to bestow legitimacy on his own leadership and on a rogue nuclear program that he has built in the face of international criticism and crippling sanctions. Many say it is unlikely that the North will trade away its hard-won nuclear weapons without getting what it wants in return.
"North Korea is expressing a commitment to a complete denuclearization," Moon said during a meeting with the heads of media organizations in South Korea on Thursday. "They are not presenting a condition that the U.S. cannot accept, such as the withdrawal of the American troops in South Korea. ... North Korea is only talking about the end of a hostile policy against it and then a security guarantee for the country."
Trump revealed Tuesday that the U.S. and North Korea had been holding direct talks at "extremely high levels" in preparation for their summit. Trump also said that North and South Korea are negotiating an end to hostilities before next week's summit.
North Korea has long sought a peace treaty with the United States to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War. Some South Koreans fear the North could use such a treaty as a pretext for demanding the withdrawal of the American troops in the South. Some worry that potential discussions on formally ending the war may distract from already difficult efforts to rid the North of nuclear weapons and apply robust verification of that process.
The armistice that halted fighting in the war was signed by the U.S.-led United Nations Command, North Korea and China. South Korea was a member of the U.N. Command but was not a direct signatory.
In their previous summit in 2007, the Koreas declared a commitment toward ending the war and vowed to pursue discussions with others. But the efforts faltered and relations between the rivals worsened after a conservative government took office in Seoul in February 2008.

Ending the Korean Nuclear Threat

North Korea says it will stop nuclear tests, abolish test site
Cynthia Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea will suspend nuclear and missile tests effective immediately and abolish a nuclear test site in a bid to pursue economic growth and peace on the Korean peninsula, the North’s state media said on Saturday, ahead of planned summits with South Korea and the United States.
North Korea leader Kim Jong Un said his country no longer needed to conduct nuclear tests or intercontinental ballistic missile tests because it has completed its goal of developing nuclear weapons, state media Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
North Korea said that to create an “international environment favorable” for its economy, it would “facilitate close contact and active dialogue” with neighboring countries and the international community.
It marked the first time North Korea directly addressed its nuclear weapons programs, ahead of leader Kim’s planned summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in next week and a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in late May or early June.
“The northern nuclear test ground of the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) will be dismantled to transparently guarantee the discontinuance of the nuclear test,” the KCNA said after Kim convened this year’s first plenary session of the Central Committee of the ruling Worker’s Party on Friday.
“We will concentrate all efforts on building a powerful socialist economy and markedly improving the standard of people’s living through the mobilization of all human and material resources of the country,” the KCNA said.
Trump welcomed the statement and said he looked forward to a summit with Kim. “North Korea has agreed to suspend all Nuclear Tests and close up a major test site. This is very good news for North Korea and the World - big progress! Look forward to our Summit,” Trump said on Twitter.
South Korea said the North’s decision signified “meaningful” progress toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and would create favorable conditions for successful meetings with it and the United States.
North Korea has defended its nuclear and missile programs as necessary deterrents against perceived U.S. hostility. It has conducted numerous missile tests, and last year it detonated its most powerful nuclear bomb.
The tests and escalating rhetoric between Trump and Kim raised fears of war until, in a New Year’s speech, the North Korean leader called for reduced military tensions and improved ties with South Korea and sent a delegation to the Winter Olympics in the South in February.
Nam Sung-wook, professor of North Korean Studies at Korea University in Seoul, said it could be considered “sensational” that Kim Jong Un personally declared plans to suspend nuclear development, but his remarks left a number of questions.
“It still does not seem clear if it means whether the North will just not pursue further development of its nuclear programs in the future, or whether they will completely shut down ‘all’ nuclear facilities. And what are they going to do with their existing nuclear weapons,” Nam said.
North Korea has expressed its commitment to “complete denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula and has not attached conditions, South Korea’s Moon said on Thursday, but Washington has remained wary and vowed to maintain “maximum pressure” on Pyongyang.
The United States said on Thursday that in the run-up to Trump’s planned summit with Kim countries should continue to put financial and diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang to surrender its banned nuclear weapons.
U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed on North Korea after its first nuclear test in 2006 and extended over the past decade have aimed to deny North Korea a considerable amount of international trade.
The ruling party’s plenary meeting on Friday was convened to discuss “policy issues of a new stage” to meet the demands of the current “important historic period,” the KCNA said.
Reporting by Cynthia Kim and Soyoung Kim; Additional reporting by Heekyong Yang and Ju-min Park; Editing by Toni Reinhold

Korean Threat About to End

North Korean leader removes major nuclear sticking point

North Korea has dropped its demand that USA troops be removed from South Korea as a condition for giving up its nuclear weapons, South Korea's President said on Thursday (April 19) in presenting the idea to the United States.
Third, the coming potential summit meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will not mark the end of diplomacy, but rather the beginning.
When North Korea dominates US news cycles, the headlines are ominous - a new nuclear weapons test, or a ballistic missile flying into space. "(North Korea) is only asking for an end to a hostile policy toward North Korea and for a security guarantee".
"We will be looking at this, in this preparatory committee meeting, to continue to put pressure on North Korea to fulfill its obligations".
But North Korea's willingness to give up its nuclear ambitions without forcing the condition of the American troops' withdrawal makes the rapprochement look all the easier.
The pair plan to meet April 27 on the South Korean side of Panmunjom, a diplomatic outpost inside the heavily fortified border separating the two countries.
Trump also promised to raise the issue of Japanese citizens held captive in North Korea - a key issue for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Trump has confirmed the visit and he also said that the meeting between Pompeo and Kim Jong-un went off "very well". While the Peace House in Panmunjom, a border village in the demilitarised zone on the Korean Peninsula, is one possibility, the optics of the U.S. president travelling there may not be embraced by the United States. They would rejoice at the humiliation of their president, even though if Trump can pull off this audacious piece of summitry and persuade Kim to ditch his nuclear arsenal, the United States and the rest of the world would be considerably safer.
While North Korea was ramping up its nuclear program, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev renounced nuclear defense capabilities and closed down the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, better known as "The Polygon", after the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
Moon's diplomatic drive picked up pace amid increasing talk in Washington about "bloody nose" military strikes on North Korea - strikes that would be potentially devastating for South Korea.
(Xi) doesn't want to see a North Korea, or any Korea that has nuclear weapons either. A world relieved of its deep concern at the threat posed by an unpredictable nuclear-armed North Korea will be fully behind the United States president as he moves to address the challenge posed by Tehran's drive to become a nuclear power.
Moreover, if the summit comes to fruition it would be the first such meeting between a sitting United States President and a North Korean leader.
Robert Wood, the top US envoy to the United Nations -hosted Conference on Disarmament, said the USA believes the ongoing pressure campaign "has had an important impact in the North's decision to return to the table". Political pundits are warning that Trump, who is not well-versed in issues concerning the Korean Peninsula, could make rash, ill-advised decisions or abruptly switch from dialogue to confrontation.
While the two Koreas are technically still at war, there has been an easing of tensions over the past several months, especially since the Olympic Winter Games held in PyeongChang in the south in February.
".for many years they have been talking to North Korea and nothing has happened". "And it is not making demands that the US can not accept, such as the withdrawal of the USA forces in Korea", he said, according to the JoongAng Ilbo, one of South Korea's biggest papers and one that had a representative at the lunch.
Now, let's say the Trump-Kim summit does materialize as planned.
The location for that summit has not yet been disclosed, and may not have been agreed on yet.

Preparing to End the Korean Nuclear Threat

N Korea-US talks: Pyongyang 'ready to discuss' nuclear programme

North Korea has promised the US it is ready to discuss the future of its nuclear arsenal when the two nations' leaders meet, US officials say.
Preparations for the summit have included secret, direct talks with North Korea, unnamed Trump administration sources said.
US and North Korean intelligence officials are said to have spoken many times, and met in a third country.
The unprecedented summit is slated to happen in May.
It will be the first time a sitting US president has met the leader of North Korea.
North Korea has already told South Korea it was prepared to address denuclearisation, but this is the first time assurances have been given to Washington directly, the US officials claimed.
Details of the summit, including the timing and location, remain unclear.

News of proposed talks between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un surprised many when it broke in March.
It followed a year of threats, personal insults and nuclear brinkmanship between their respective leaders.
The North has previously halted missile and nuclear tests during past talks, only to resume them when it lost patience or felt its demands were not being met.

Analysis: Decoding 'denuclearisation'

By Laura Bicker, BBC Seoul Correspondent
Finally, after months of speculation, there is an acknowledgment that Washington and Pyongyang are talking to one another.
Having an open channel of communication is a huge step forward for two countries that were exchanging insults this time last year. The meeting between President Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un on 27 April will be also be key to getting a clearer idea of what North Korea really wants and will help prepare the US for its talks with the young leader.
However, many are worried that there may be a miscommunication right from the offset.
The unnamed US official said that North Korea was willing to discuss denuclearisation. That term could mean very different things to the US and North Korea. The US wants Kim Jong-un to give up his nuclear arsenal which North Korea has spent decades developing at a huge cost to the people of the country.
North Korea has repeatedly called for the withdrawal of US troops from the Korean peninsula and a guarantee that the US will not use its weapons to defend South Korea and Japan. Both sides may want to talk about denuclearisation. But they interpret the word rather differently, and that could make all the difference when the two leaders come face to face.

The road to talks

As yet, North Korea has not broken its public silence to confirm the summit with the US is happening.
However, a series of meetings with overseas leaders suggest that preparations are indeed under way.
In late March, Mr Kim made his first known foreign trip since taking office in 2011 - to Beijing.
The visit, confirmed by China and North Korea, involved "successful talks" with President Xi Jinping, China's Xinhua news agency reported.

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Media captionChinese TV showed footage of the two leaders with their wives

China is North Korea's main economic ally, and it was thought highly likely that Pyongyang would consult Beijing before holding summits with South Korea and the US.
South Korea has played a key role in brokering the proposed talks between the US and its northern neighbour.

The Korean Nuclear Threat About to End

North Korea tells US it will discuss de-nuclearisation

Katrina Manson in Washington 24 minutes ago

 

North Korea has said it is willing to discuss de-nuclearisation with the US, a Trump administration official said on Sunday, increasing the chances of an unprecedented summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the US president.

South Korean officials had told Donald Trump that Mr Kim was willing to meet him to discuss de-nuclearisation, but the administration comments on Sunday mark the first time the US has officially confirmed the information with North Korea itself.
“I confirm that the United States and North Korea have been holding talks in preparation for a summit, and that North Korea has confirmed its willingness to talk about de-nuclearisation,” a National Security Council spokesperson told the FT.
The spokesperson would not say who had met with North Korea officials, describing the details as internal US preparations, but added that “a comprehensive, whole-of-government effort in support of the president is actively under way”.
The US, which has maintained back-channel lines of communication with North Korean officials, has accelerated efforts to prepare a summit in earnest since Mr Trump unexpectedly agreed to meet Mr Kim.

 

Cliff Kupchan, chairman of Eurasia Group risk consultancy, said North Korea’s reported commitment to discuss “de-nuclearisation” significantly increases the chances that Mr Trump will meet Mr Kim. However, he added that it does not make a positive outcome more likely.
“We don’t know what Pyongyang means by the term, and they’ve got a record of backtracking on commitments,” said Mr Kupchan. “This prospective encounter is still a minefield for President Trump.”
Chung Eui-yong, South Korea’s national security director, announced last month outside the White House that US-North Korea talks were possible.
“President Trump . . . said he would meet Kim by May to achieve permanent de-nuclearisation,” Mr Chung told reporters after meeting with US officials.
Mr Trump later hailed the breakthrough but cautioned that the policy of putting pressure on Pyongyang would stay in place.
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report that the North Korea had confirmed its intent to discuss de-nuclearisation.

Making the Deal with Korea

Never mind about John Bolton. Trump's ego could force a North Korea deal anyway
Michael Desch is the Director of the Notre Dame International Security Center. The views expressed are his own.
(CNN)Many people are understandably alarmed by President Trump's appointment of unrepentant George W. Bush-era hawk John Bolton as his new National Security Adviser to replace General H.R. McMaster, who is unceremoniously marching off into the sunset on the heels of his predecessor, General Michael Flynn.
In 2003, Bolton rode in the vanguard of the war party, pushing to topple Saddam Hussein on the specious grounds that Iraq was pursuing nuclear and chemical weapons and in cahoots with al Qaeda. Unchastened by the Iraq debacle and the exposure of the bogus rationales for the war, an out-of-power Bolton has sniped at the Obama administration's Iran nuclear agreement and beat the drums for war to denuclearize North Korea.
While putting Bolton back in power may signal the demise of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for Iran, I am less worried, ironically, about the prospects for a diplomatic solution to the North Korean nuclear crisis. Indeed, I can see a way that the President's ego, combined with his penchant for ignoring his advisers, could advance a diplomatic solution to the tinderbox straddling both sides of the 38th Parallel even while they drive the last nail in the coffin of the Iran nuclear deal.
This would be a shame, given that the JCPOA has broad international support among our allies and other important powers such as Russia and China. Like most arms control agreements, it is not perfect, but most of its supposed defects involve things like Iranian meddling in other countries, support for terrorist organizations, or development of ballistic missiles which were not covered by the original agreement.
Kim Jong Un's cunning strategy could lead the world down a dangerous path
Most knowledgeable observers inside and outside the United States concede, even if grudgingly, that Iran has abided by the narrow terms of the agreement itself.
So why would President Trump discard a good agreement with Iran and pursue what is likely to be a far more flawed one with North Korea? Such an approach makes little strategic sense, but strategy has little to do with how the President thinks about the world. Rather, our Art-of-the-Deal President operates primarily on a personal level.
While he hates former President Obama's Iran deal, primarily because he, himself, did not cut it, I could imagine him reaching a far worse deal with North Korea which he would love, warts and all, because it was his.
To be sure, there are also more credible reasons for him to pursue a diplomatic, rather than military, solution to the North Korean nuclear crisis. It has become apparent in recent months that, despite the President's badgering of his military advisers for a plan to pre-emptively knock out the Hermit Kingdom's budding nuclear arsenal, the best he can get out of them are plans to give Pyongyang a bloody nose through symbolic strikes, hoping that will scare Kim into surrendering his arsenal.
Nor can America's military planners assure the President that even a reasonably successful first strike on Kim's nuclear arsenal would prevent a catastrophic conventional war that would kill hundreds of thousands of Korean civilians. This realization that their capitol Seoul and millions of their citizens are within range of tens of thousands of North Korean artillery pieces has led our South Korean allies to push hard for jaw-jaw rather than war-war, to borrow Winston Churchill's famous phrase.
China is joined at the hip with North Korea in a dysfunctional marriage of inconvenience, in which the Middle Kingdom provides its wayward younger brother with most of its food and energy supplies to avoid having an American ally on its border and preserve the last shred of its increasingly threadbare international Communist legitimacy. So it would also welcome a deal that ends the slow-motion crisis between Washington and Pyongyang.
Finally, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un's flurry of diplomacy with the South and hasty train trip to visit his patrons in Beijing could signal that North Korea's foremost Dennis Rodman fan may also want to play Let's Make a Deal.
Predicting what President Trump will likely do is as fraught an endeavor as divining the murky palace politics of "little rocket man's" regime. But assuming that ego trumps strategy in Washington these days, the desire to cut a North Korean nuclear deal makes sense of some of the recent puzzling moves from the President, particularly the indecent alacrity with which he accepted Kim's olive branch delivered via Seoul a couple of weeks ago.
Incoming Trump National Security Adviser Bolton will surely not want to play along with this diplomatic Kabuki dance, which is unlikely to roll back North Korea's nuclear program. Indeed, most analysts think that in exchange for an easing of the crippling economic sanctions, the best President Trump is likely to get is a "freeze" on additional North Korean missile tests. This is hardly a great deal from Bolton's global regime change perspective or even compared with the JCPOA.
But if I am right that Trump's ego will trump Bolton's hardline strategic agenda, any flaws in an agreement with North Korea may be irrelevant.
Ironically, this might be one instance in which the President's well-documented penchant for bypassing his advisers may favor diplomacy. Indeed, a cynic might wonder whether Bolton's appointment was in part Trump's effort to protect his right flank as he pursues a historic, if flawed, North Korean nuclear "deal."

Making A Golden Deal with Trump

Dumping North Korea nuclear weapons: What does Kim Jong Un want from Trump?
Oren Dorell
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has committed to a nuclear free Korean Peninsula ahead of his planned summit with President Trump, according to Chinese media. But what will he want in return for his prized possessions?
Past agreements and statements by the North's government show that Kim wants normalized relations with the United States, something no American president has had the stomach to deliver to one of the most brutal regimes in the world.
“An end to US enmity remains Kim Jong Un’s aim just as it was his grandfather’s and father’s for the past thirty years,” says Leon Sigal, author of Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea.
Kim may be willing to denuclearize and even take steps to disarm if Trump commits to end hostile relations with the North — and takes action to show he means it, Sigal wrote Monday in 38 North, a publication of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University.
The problem for U.S. leaders has always been that the highly militarized and totalitarian North Korean government is so brutal to its own people and aggressive toward its neighbors that exchanging ambassadors and conducting normal trade would be politically unappetizing.
Trump, however, signaled Tuesday that this time might be different.
"For years and through many administrations, everyone said that peace and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was not even a small possibility," Trump said on Twitter. "Now there is a good chance that Kim Jong Un will do what is right for his people and for humanity. Look forward to our meeting!"
For years and through many administrations, everyone said that peace and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was not even a small possibility. Now there is a good chance that Kim Jong Un will do what is right for his people and for humanity. Look forward to our meeting!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2018
Received message last night from XI JINPING of China that his meeting with KIM JONG UN went very well and that KIM looks forward to his meeting with me. In the meantime, and unfortunately, maximum sanctions and pressure must be maintained at all cost!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2018
U.S. statements and failed agreements under past presidents show what the Kim family has always wanted.
The Clinton years
During the Cold War, Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, sought to reduce over-dependence on China by working with the Soviet Union. As the Soviet Union was about to collapse, he reached out to the U.S., Japan and South Korea for the same reason.
That led to the 1994 Agreed Framework, which required North Korea to freeze work on nuclear reactors suspected of being part of a covert nuclear weapons program in exchange for two nuclear power reactors that would be hard to use for weapons' work.
The agreement, negotiated under then-President Bill Clinton, also required the U.S. and North Korea “to move toward normalizing economic and political relations, including by reducing barriers to investment, opening liaison offices, and ultimately exchanging ambassadors,” according to the Arms Control Association.
That level of agreement never happened. And U.S. intelligence agencies later concluded that the North had launched a new nuclear weapons project in secret.
George W. Bush
Under President George W. Bush, White House officials said they had no hostile intent toward North Korea. But after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Bush named North Korea in his “Axis of Evil.” Then the White House issued a report that discussed pre-emptive attacks on countries like North Korea that were developing weapons of mass destruction.
Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, restarted his dormant nuclear reactors. And the Bush administration returned to negotiations with the North.
That led to the 2005 Joint Statement of the Six Party Talks, in which North Korea committed to “the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner,” and “to abandoning all nuclear weapons.”
Again, the North and the U.S. said they would “respect each other's sovereignty, exist peacefully together, and take steps to normalize their relations subject to their respective bilateral policies.”
Two more rounds of talks took place, with no substantial results.
Barack Obama and Trump
In April 2009, North Korea tested a long-range missile and later announced it would no longer negotiate or abide by previous agreements. In all its statements since, it asserted its right to develop nuclear weapons to deter the U.S. threat.
North Korea quickly ramped up its nuclear weapons program when President Barack Obama was in office, and during the first year of Trump's presidency.