Posted on 05/15/2018 10:14:06 PM PDT by Pinkbell
North Korea on Wednesday injected further uncertainty into plans for a highly anticipated summit between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump.
The reclusive regime said it will reconsider the historic June 12 meeting scheduled to take place in Singapore if the U.S. insists on Pyongyang relinquishing its nuclear weapons, Reuters reported, citing North Korea's state news agency KCNA.
The development is the latest sign of possible backtracking by Kim following the ruler's months-long international charm offensive that was widely hoped to clear tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Earlier, the rogue state canceled talks with South Korea and threatened to ditch the June 12 summit in protest over Washington and Seoul's joint military drills.
Wednesday's news "is classic North Korean playbook," said Sean King, senior vice president at consulting firm Park Strategies.
Ongoing peace efforts, which include Kim'ssummit with South Korean leader Moon Jae-In last month, may "be moving faster than North Korea ever expected and this is sort of their passive-aggressive excuse to get out of it," according to King.
Trump will remain as a "failed president" if he follows in the steps of his predecessors, KCNA added on Wednesday.
Pyonyang will never engage in economic trade with the world's largest economy in exchange for giving up weapons, KCNA continued, adding that North Korea rejects Libya-style denuclearization.
Libya voluntarily gave up its nuclear ambitions in 2003 in order to get out from under economic sanctions. The country's dictator Moammar Gadhafi was eventually overthrown in a Western-supported coup and killed in 2011.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
I wondered about this. Why would North Korea ever give up their nukes voluntarily? They saw what happened in Libya:
Pyonyang will never engage in economic trade with the world's largest economy in exchange for giving up weapons, KCNA continued, adding that North Korea rejects Libya-style denuclearization.
The media will blame Trump for pulling out of the Iran deal as showing we aren't trustworthy, but the one thing that concerns them is what happened under Obama and Hillary. They don't want to be the next Libya - trusting the US and then, when defenseless, subject to regime change. These nukes also give them a voice on the national stage - a reason for people to consider them serious players. People may not want to listen to them, but they grudgingly have to because they have nukes. I mean, look, they just got meetings with the heads of China, South Korea, and possibly the U.S. over these weapons. Does North Korea really want to lose this playing card on the world stage?
The talks of uniting North and South Korea never made sense to me. The only way they would do that is under Kim Jong Un. The thought that they would even allow people to travel back and forth doesn't make sense to me. Who would come back home? If they did, they would see what the South is like, and the people would rise up for regime change. The one thing Kim Jong Un wants more than anything, is to keep his regime.
The North Koreans can watch their country disappear under the weight of sanctions.
President Trump is perfectly willing to walk away from a bad deal.
And this is not a negotiation. The North Koreans don’t get to dicate terms to the US.
If they don’t want a deal, that’s fine. Trump isn’t in a hurry to collect that Nobel Peace Prize.
I’d love to see NK thumb it’s nose at China and back out, but I don’t think they can afford to.
China and Russia want NK’s ports developed for US oil amd trade and that takes US approval.
The North Koreans won’t survive without Russia and China.
And the Chinese will remind them they agreed to this denuclearization process.
They’re entitled to change their minds but they won’t get security guarantees then.
Noth Korea is not to be trusted to keep its word. They have played this brinksmanship game before.
President Trump is not a patsy. They will find out that soon enough.
Then tell ‘Little Rocket Man’ to eat weeds.
Things have really changed for China. They’d be better off now with a peaceful NK and a peaceful Iran.
The opposite of just a few years ago.
And Trump can help with both- for a price.
I think the NK of the 1990s would have easily backed out and walked away. The crafted method of downsizing their access to global markets, has turned this into a very different NK, with limited options. China has moved on, and doesn’t have the supportive nature that it had twenty years ago.
The NKs said they wanted denuclearization of the peninsula and they are making a big show of demolishing a nuclear facility next week. Now they are changing their mind or reverting back to their old ways.
I suspect they realize that Trump is not going agree to their extortion and lies like Clinton did. No benefits up front. No deal is better than a bad deal. Trump will walk away and the sanctions will increase.
As far as I’m concerned, even if there’s no progress on nukes, we got three of our people back. That’s not nothing. If Trump starts taking out his nuke complexes, Kim won’t have any American civilians to dangle as hostages.
Yup. That’s exactly what will happen.
Dictators always expect Western leaders will cave in to avoid a crisis.
Trump thrives on chaos.
Trump has already been strengthened. Kim is playing with a weak hand.
Democrats aren’t going to oppose an increasingly popular President.
The North Korean dictator has little real familiarity with how things work here.
Agree.
Exactly. The left keeps crowing with joy on Twitter that Trump got played. He never got played because he has been clear in every statement he has given that it may work and may not - that he might get up and leave the meeting if it wasn’t going well. He has continually said, “We’ll see what happens.” North Korea shouldn’t play him for a fool. Trump could impose the full weight of sanctions.
Kim loves to jerk around politicians. Any politicians. All politicians. You could see this coming a mile away, striding down Main Street with a neon sign on its head.
That so called “coup” worked out so well for Libya.
I was wondering what their end game was here because I was very suspicious Kim would give up the nukes they worked so hard for. Opening up his regime to the outside world would be the end of his regime because once the people in the North saw the South, they would demand change.
I wonder if Trump will pull out now and impose maximum sanctions.
100% correct. NORKs are just posturing as they always do. If they pull out, so what? We got back 3 hostages and now we can drop the big one on rocket man.
They are very unhappy that luxury goods are cut off, so I don’t see them pulling out of talks. Gotta keep the elites happy or they will slit rocket man’s throat.
“I wondered about this. Why would North Korea ever give up their nukes voluntarily? They saw what happened in Libya.”
I was thinking the same. Until Hillary’s dead, no country is safe after it de-nukes. Surprised it went this far with the Norks..
True. It probably didn’t help that John Bolton said they wanted to use the “Libya Model” for denuclearization. North Korea noticed that and called it out on state TV.
I want very much to see Trump succeed in this. It would be fantastic, but I keep asking myself why North Korea would do it. Kim only cares that Kim is in power.
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