Trump-Kim deal signals North Korea may never give up its nuclear weapons

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hasn’t given up a single nuclear weapon, but that didn’t stop President Donald Trump from reassuring Americans on Twitter that they should “sleep well” because the nuclear threat fromPyongyang is over. 

That public strategy is leading some analysts to believe Trump might be willing to live with a nuclear armed North Korea just as the U.S. has learned to live with other nuclear nations, like Pakistan and India. Despite tough U.S. talk before the summit about “complete” and “verifiable” denuclearization, the vaguely worded 1 1/2-page document Trump and Kim signed doesn’t include that language and essentially represents “tacit approval” of North Korea’s nuclear program, said Jeffery Lewis, director of the East Asia Non-Proliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in Monterey, California. “I don’t think it would be the end of the world, because it’s the world we already live in,” he said. “My worry is that the president keeps promising that Kim will give up his weapons. If he suddenly wakes up one day and realizes what’s really going on, he could just explode, and then we’re in real trouble.”

Singapore likely to be the venue for Trump-Kim meeting in June

US President Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un are likely to meet in Singapore next month, reports said Monday, as anticipation builds for unprecedented talks between the mercurial leaders.

Trump said at the weekend that the two sides had settled on a date and location for the summit -- the first between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader -- without providing details.

"We'll be announcing it soon," Trump told reporters. The landmark summit will take place in "mid-June", South Korea's Chosun Ilbo daily reported Monday, citing diplomatic sources who quoted Trump's National Security Advisor John Bolton.

The newspaper suggested that the possibility of Singapore hosting the landmark meeting had "increased greatly", after a decision by Trump to host South Korean president Moon Jae-in at the White House later this month, without giving further explanation.

Bolton met his South Korean counterpart Chung Eui-yong in Washington late last week to discuss plans for both locations, according to local media reports.

A similar report on the weekend from South Korea's Yonhap news agency also said Singapore was firming as the favoured location for the summit.

Look forward to meeting Kim Jong-un; US talking to N Korea directly: Trump

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the US was in direct talks with North Korea "at a very high level" ahead of his planned summit with Kim Jong-un.

The two countries were looking at five potential venues for the summit, "but it is not in the United States", Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago where he was hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"We've also started talking to North Korea directly.We have had direct talks at very high levels -- extremely high levels -- with North Korea," Trump said before a restricted bilateral meeting with Abe.

"I really believe there's a lot of goodwill. A lot of good things are happening.We'll see what happens.As I always say, we'll see what happens.Because ultimately, it's the end result that counts, not the fact that we're thinking about having a meeting or having a meeting," he said.

North Korea's Kim ready to give up nukes if his regime safety is guaranteed

North Korea is open to denuclearization if the safety of Kim Jong Un’s regime is guaranteed, South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s office said.
The two leaders will meet for a summit at the end of April along the border, the statement said, adding that North Korea was ready for candid talks with the U. S. to normalize relations.
“North Korea has clearly expressed its intention for denuclearlization on the Korean peninsula, and if there is no military threat, and North Korea’s regime security is promised, they have clarified that there is no reason to hold nuclear weapons,” Moon’s office said.
US President Donald Trump has said that North Korea must be willing to denuclearize before talks can begin.

Tensions have risen over the past year as Kim has sought the capability to strike the US homeland with a nuclear weapon.
North Korea has agreed to halt nuclear and missile tests while talks are taking place, Moon’s office said. It also pledged to avoid using nuclear or conventional weapons against South Korea, it said.

South Korean delegation holds talk with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un

A South Korean delegation met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Monday, a South Korean official said, after arriving in the North on a visit aimed at encouraging North Korea and the United States to talk.

Both North Korea and the United States have expressed a willingness to talk, but US President Donald Trump demands the North first gives up its nuclear weapons programme.
The North, which has vowed never to give up its nuclear deterrent against what it sees as U. S. hostility, says it will not sit down to talks under preconditions.
Reclusive North Korea, which has made no secret of its pursuit of a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the mainland United States in defiance of U. N. Security Council resolutions, is also concerned about a joint U.

S.-South Korea military exercise, which it sees as preparation for war.
South Korean officials have said the drill will start next month as planned, after being postponed for the Winter Olympics held last month in South Korea.

N Korea aggressively developing ballistic missile submarine: Report

Satellite images taken this month of a North Korean naval shipyard indicate Pyongyang is pursuing an "aggressive schedule" to build its first operational ballistic missile submarine, a U.S. institute reported on Thursday.

Washington-based 38 North, a North Korea monitoring project, cited images taken on Nov. 5 showing activity at North Korea's Sinpo South Shipyard.

"The presence of what appear to be sections of a submarine's pressure hull in the yards suggests construction of a new submarine, possibly the SINPO-C ballistic missile submarine - the follow-on to the current SINPO-class experimental ballistic missile submarine," 38 North said in a report.

The report said that throughout 2017 there had been continued movement of parts and components into and out of two parts yards adjacent to the constructions halls in the center of the shipyard.

It said the Nov. 5 images showed two large circular objects that could be sections of a submarine's pressure hull. It said these appeared larger than those for North Korea's ROMEO-class attack submarine.

Images of a test stand indicated continued testing of a mechanism for ejection launch of missiles from a submarine.
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World will not tolerate North Korea's 'nuclear blackmail', says Trump

US President Donald Trump has warned North Korea that the world will not tolerate what he called its "nuclear blackmail," vowing an international campaign of "maximum pressure" on Pyongyang, including by China.

"I made clear that we will not allow this twisted dictatorship to hold the world hostage to nuclear blackmail," Trump said in a televised statement a day after returning from his marathon trip to Asia.

Trump said Chinese leader Xi Jinping had pledged to use Beijing's economic leverage over Pyongyang to achieve denuclearization in the North.

"President Xi recognizes that North Korea is a great threat to China," the US leader said.

During his recent trip to China, Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to faithfully implement United Nations Security Council resolutions on North Korea and to use his great economic influence over the regime to achieve their common goal of a denuclearised Korean Peninsula.

"President Xi recognises that a nuclear North Korea is a grave threat to China, and we agreed that we would not accept a so-called "freeze for freeze" agreement like those that have consistently failed in the past. We made that time is running out and we made it clear, and all options remain on the table," Trump said.
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US quietly defying Trump rejection, pursuing direct diplomacy with N Korea

The United States is quietly pursuing direct diplomacy with North Korea, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday, despite US President Donald Trump’s public assertion that such talks are a waste of time.

Using the so-called “New York channel,” Joseph Yun, US negotiator with North Korea, has been in contact with diplomats at Pyongyang’s United Nations mission, the official said, at a time when an exchange of bellicose insults between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has fueled fears of military conflict.

While U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on October 17 said he would continue “diplomatic efforts ... until the first bomb drops,” the official’s comments were the clearest sign the United States was directly discussing issues beyond the release of American prisoners, despite Trump having dismissed direct talks as pointless.

There is no sign, however, that the behind-the-scenes communications have improved a relationship vexed by North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests, the death of US university student Otto Warmbier days after his release by Pyongyang in June and the detention of three other Americans.

Word of quiet engagement with Pyongyang comes despite Trump’s comments, North Korea’s weapons advances and suggestions by some U.S. and South Korean officials that Yun’s interactions with North Koreans had been reined in.
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The world once laughed at North Korean cyberpower

When North Korean hackers tried to steal $1 billion from the New York Federal Reserve last year, only a spelling error stopped them. They were digitally looting an account of the Bangladesh Central Bank, when bankers grew suspicious about a withdrawal request that had misspelled “foundation” as “fandation.”

Even so, Kim Jong-un’s minions still got away with $81 million in that heist.

Then only sheer luck enabled a 22-year-old British hacker to defuse the biggest North Korean cyberattack to date, a ransomware attack last May that failed to generate much cash but brought down hundreds of thousands of computers across dozens of countries — and briefly crippled Britain’s National Health Service.

Their track record is mixed, but North Korea’s army of more than 6,000 hackers is undeniably persistent, and undeniably improving, according to American and British security officials who have traced these attacks and others back to the North.

Amid all the attention on Pyongyang’s progress in developing a nuclear weapon capable of striking the continental United States, the North Koreans have also quietly developed a cyberprogram that is stealing hundreds of millions of dollars and proving capable of unleashing global havoc.
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Donald Trump says 'only one thing will work' with North Korea

US President Donald Trump has said "only one thing will work" with North Korea after past talks with Pyongyang had yielded no results.

"Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid," Trump tweeted on Saturday, Xinhua news agency reported.

"...Hasn't worked, agreements violated before the ink was dry, making fools of US negotiators," Trump wrote. "Sorry, but only one thing will work!"

Trump did not make clear to what he was referring to in his tweets.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders later confirmed to media that all options are still on the table and she had nothing further to add at this time.

Tensions ran high on the Korean Peninsula as North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on September 3.

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UN has 'exhausted' its options on North Korea nuclear crisis: Nikki Haley

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley warned that the world body has "exhausted" its options on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue.

"We have pretty much exhausted all the things that we can do at the Security Council at this point," Haley on Sunday said in an interview with the CNN.

"None of us want war," she said, adding that if diplomacy fails on the nuclear issue, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis "will take care of it", Xinhua news agency reported.

Meanwhile, the US and South Korea have agreed to increase pressure on North Korea after its latest missile test, the White House said on Sunday.

US President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in spoke on Saturday by phone and committed to "continuing to take steps to strengthen deterrence and defence capabilities and to maximize economic and diplomatic pressure" on North Korea, according to a White House statement.
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Japan will 'never tolerate' North Korea's 'provocative' acts: Shinzo Abe

Prime minister Shinzo Abe said on Friday that Japan would "never tolerate" what he called North Korea's "dangerous provocative action that threatens world peace" following a missile launch over his country.

"We can never tolerate that North Korea trampled on the international community's strong, united resolve toward peace that has been shown in UN resolutions and went ahead again with this outrageous act," Abe told reporters.

"If North Korea continues to walk down this path, it has no bright future. We must make North Korea understand this," he added.

Japan was jolted awake in the early hours by an alert saying North Korea had fired a missile over its northern island of Hokkaido, the second such launch in less than a month.

Abe called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council and stressed: "Now is the time for the international community to be united.

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UN Security Council unanimously steps up sanctions against North Korea

The UN Security Council has unanimously passed a US-drafted resolution that imposes strongest sanctions ever on North Korea, with measures targeting its last remaining major exports and reducing about 30 percent of oil provided to it.

"Today, we are saying the world will never accept a nuclear-armed North Korea. And today, the Security Council is saying that if the North Korean regime does not halt its nuclear program, we will act to stop it ourselves," the US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said as the 15-membered UN body passed the resolution 2375 on North Korea.

"We are done trying to prod the regime to do the right thing. We are now acting to stop it from having the ability to continue doing the wrong thing," she said.

Haley said the international community is doing that by hitting North Korea's ability to fuel and fund its weapons program.

Noting that oil is the lifeblood of North Korea's effort to build and deliver a nuclear weapon, Haley said the resolution reduces almost 30 per cent of oil provided to North Korea by cutting off over 55 per cent of its gas, diesel, and heavy fuel oil.
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Caught between Trump and Kim, Japan is nervous and alone

North Korea’s nuclear test, by far its largest, came less than a week after it test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that flew over northern Japan, triggering a national text-message system known as the J-Alert.

For Japan, the security implications of both these tests are immense. The missile test showed that Kim Jong-un’s regime now has the capacity to strike the Japanese mainland with relative ease, while Pyongyang’s apparent grasp of hydrogen bomb technology means it could potentially vaporise a chunk of the continental US mainland. That changes not just the magnitude of the North Korean threat, but the very foundations of Japan’s national security.

The US’s commitment to protect Japan is currently based on the idea that the American mainland remains safe from North Korean retaliation. But faced with the reality that North Korea could soon be able to strike American soil, there is now a serious question mark over how willing the US will be to come to Japan’s aid while its own security is at risk.

This puts Japan in a highly difficult position. Its alliance with the US has been the bedrock of its foreign and security policies since at least the 1960s, and until now, any countermeasure against North Korea was based on the assumption that Washington will come to Tokyo’s help. In other words, Japan has for decades been able to invoke American military power as part of its own diplomatic clout. No more.
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US will receive more 'gift packages,' warns North Korea after nuclear test

A top North Korean diplomat on Tuesday warned that his country is ready to send “more gift packages” to the United States as world powers struggled for a response to Pyongyang’s latest nuclear weapons test.

Han Tae Song, ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, confirmed that North Korea had successfully conducted its sixth and largest nuclear bomb test on Sunday.

”The recent self-defence measures by my country, DPRK, are a gift package addressed to none other than the US,” Han told a disarmament conference, using the acronym for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the country’s formal name.

“The US will receive more ‘gift packages’ ... as long as it relies on reckless provocations and futile attempts to put pressure on the DPRK,” he added without elaborating.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Monday accused North Korean leader Kim Jong Un of “begging for war” with a series of nuclear bomb and missile tests, and urged the 15-member Security Council to impose the “strongest possible” sanctions to deter him and shut down his trading partners.

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North Korea quake 9.8 times more powerful than 5th: South Korean media

The "artificial quake" in North Korea on Sunday, thought to be its sixth nuclear test, was 9.8 times more powerful than the tremor from Pyongyang's fifth test, the South's Yonhap news agency reported citing the state weather agency.

It was "not only 9.8 times more powerful than the nuclear test conducted in September last year, but it is the most powerful", an official at the Korea Meteorological Administration told Yonhap.
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Global stocks tumble, yen gains after North Korea fires missile over Japan

US stock futures and Asian share markets tumbled on Tuesday, while the yen jumped to four-month highs against the dollar after North Korea fired a missile over northern Japan, setting up a tense start to trading for markets in the region.

S&P mini futures fell as much as 0.85 percent on the news before paring losses to trade 0.5 percent below its close on Monday, when it was little changed.

Japan's Nikkei fell 0.7 percent to four-month low while South Korea's Kospi shed 0.5 percent, helping to drag down MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan 0.3 percent.

North Korea fired a missile early on Tuesday that flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific waters off the northern region of Hokkaido, South Korea and Japan said, in a sharp escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea has conducted dozens of ballistic missile tests under young leader Kim Jong-Un, the most recent on Saturday, but firing projectiles over mainland Japan is rare.

"North Korea's reckless action is an unprecedented, serious and a grave threat to our nation," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters.

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Macron warns against 'escalating tensions' over N Korea, urges dialogue

French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday warned against an "escalation of tensions" over North Korea amid a growing war of words between Washington and Pyongyang.

In a statement, Macron voiced his "concern at the ballistic and nuclear threat coming from North Korea", saying the international community needed to work to get Pyongyang "resume the path of dialogue without conditions".
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North Korea threatens missile strike near US territory Guam: Reports

North Korea on Wednesday said that it is considering strikes near US strategic military installations in Guam with its intermediate range ballistic missiles, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

The threat comes days after the US Security Council levied new sanctions on North Korea over its growing nuclear arsenal.

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'Foolish daydream': North Korea's jibe at Japan's bid to grab Tok Islets

North Korea on Thursday slammed Japan for trying to lay claim to the Tok Islets by presenting them as Japanese territory in teaching materials for schools.

According to Xinhua news agency, the official daily Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary that such acts are being committed by "Japanese reactionaries with robber-like intention".

"The Japanese reactionaries persistently assert that the Tok Islets are inviolable parts of their territory and imbue rising generations with ambition for the Tok Islets. Their purpose is to use their youngsters as a shock brigade for grabbing the Tok Islets and re-invading Korea in the future," said the newspaper of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea.

It also accused Japan of frequently staging combat drills for capturing the islets by mobilising the Self-Defence Forces and preparing the country for a state of war.

"No matter how desperately Japan may assert the Tok Islets belong to its territory, it can convince no one. Japan's bid to grab the Tok Islets is a foolish daydream," it said.

The Japanese government decided to write into official school textbooks that the Tok Islets are part of Japan, a claim denounced by both Pyongyang and Seoul.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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