A week of policy failures and missteps for President Trump just got worse as North Korea
announced that it would never denuclearize unless the US first removes its
nuclear threat. After Trump met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in June,
the president claimed that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat and even suggested
that he deserved
a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on nuclear disarmament.
Now, six months later, North Korea’s official Korean Central
News statement says that the rogue nation will never unilaterally give up its
nuclear weapons. Instead, the North
Koreans place conditions on disarmament that include a complete or partial
withdrawal of American soldiers and nuclear weapons from near the Korean
peninsula. This has been the traditional North Korean position in negotiations
with past administrations as well.
“The United States must now recognize the accurate meaning
of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and especially, must study
geography,” the North Korean statement said per the AP.
“When we talk about the Korean Peninsula, it includes the
territory of our republic and also the entire region of (South Korea) where the
United States has placed its invasive force, including nuclear weapons. When we
talk about the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, it means the removal
of all sources of nuclear threat, not only from the South and North but also
from areas neighboring the Korean Peninsula,” the statement continued.
Meanwhile, as talks deteriorated between the US and North
Korea, the Trump Administration raised the possibility of humanitarian
relief from sanctions in exchange for nuclear concessions. In the past, the
West has given sanctions relief to the North Korean regime in deals on which the
hermit kingdom failed to follow through.
Last spring and summer, there were reports that the North was
dismantling some nuclear test facilities. Other
reports in recent months have indicated that the Koreans were continuing to
work on nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles at secret sites.
“If we unilaterally give up our nuclear weapons without any
security assurance despite being first on the U.S. list of targets for
pre-emptive nuclear strikes, that wouldn’t be denuclearization — it would
rather be a creation of a defenseless state where the balance in nuclear
strategic strength is destroyed and the crisis of a nuclear war is brought
forth,” the North Korean statement said.
What many experts predicted now seems obvious: The North
Koreans will never willingly surrender their nuclear capability which is the
one weapon that ensures the survival of the Kim regime. The talks with the
Trump Administration seem to have been nothing more than a play for time and a
ploy to negotiate for the removal of sanctions.
Expectations of a Nobel Prize for President Trump appear to
have been very premature.
Originally published
on The
Resurgent
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