A team of US officials led by envoy Sung Kim met with North Korean officials Sunday at Panmunjom, the border village between North and South Korea in the demilitarized zone, senior State Department officials told CNN.
The talks were the first face-to-face conversations between the two countries since the summit last month between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and were held to work on implementing the agreement reached between the two leaders, the officials said.
Kim is the US ambassador to the Philippines and has been one of the key US officials dealing with the North Koreans leading up to the Trump-Kim summit.
National security adviser John Bolton said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” earlier Sunday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would communicate with the North Koreans in the near future about the dismantling of their weapons of mass destruction as well as their nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Maybe Ezra Klein and Jennifer should rewrite their editorial, and this time write the truth rather than Democrat white feather opinion.
Maybe this was why there was a major shakeup in Kim Jong Un’s military top brass. Moving the chess pieces for the big tournament.
I really miss John F. Kerry … said no one – EVER. He would be falling off his bike and fracturing his skull in the DMZ. Thankfully, MY President has sent MEN to meet with the Norks … not some transitioning woman on a bicycle.
Kenji.. I am still surprised at the risk our President (Trump) took to his legacy… The last President who took that type of risk was Carter and he failed and was considered weak…Although Obama has since became the worst & weakest President. He must be in a funk that Trump is meeting Putin to talk as adults….So much to gain & “now” nothing to lose….
That’s because Carter was weak, at least as a president. (Rather looks weak as an ordinary man, too.) Trump has faults, as does any man, but he isn’t weak and he believes in his country as Carter didn’t.
“Kim can now force American leaders to stop and think whether it’s really worth risking a possible nuclear attack on the US mainland just to defend South Korea from a North Korean attack. North Korea has missiles capable of reaching the West Coast and is thought to have nuclear warheads that would fit on top of them. They could destroy a major nuclear city. To modify a phrase from the Cold War, would Trump be prepared to trade San Francisco for Seoul?”
I’m game. Atomic bombs wiping California’s liberal cesspits off the map would solve most of Trump’s domestic political problems in one shot.
LA and Hollywood—poof!
San Francisco’s perverts—poof!
San José and the Silicon Valley globalists—poof!
Nothing of value lost.
The Democratic Party—shot through the heart.
That’s why Beijing insisted Kim deal with Trump. Trump has nothing to lose from a war with North Korea and everything to gain.
The San Andreas fault hasn’t totally let loose since 1857. If it lets go completely the devastation will be catastrophic. It will make the effects of a nuke look puny.
Amazing how the Demos can read Trump’s mind and pass judgement as efficiently as they do. Just as Trump has engaged the Norks he moves on to talk to Putin. What classified intelligence tells Trump’s team is not shared with CNN which is to bad but since when has that stopped them from stringing a line of BS.
At the end of the day progressives to a large extent deal in BS. Their accountability has not be seriously questioned for decades. Trump in his own way has dealt with that and they are in total disarray. The process has certainly revealed the ugliness of much of their core beliefs.
lefty “experts” and bull$hit have lot in common. Still waiting for peek oil!!!
Trump is so stupid! The way to deal with a situation like this is to send transport planeloads of cash to let them know just how unacceptable their bullying is.
“…The way to deal with a situation like this is to send transport planeloads of cash …”
And blankets….do deal with the cruel Afgha….I mean Nork winter.
Yes, about that:
“New satellite photos show that Kim Jong Un is continuing to develop his nuclear weapons program, and U.S. intelligence sources say they believe North Korea has increased its production of nuclear fuel at multiple sites. This wasn’t supposed to happen after the Donald Trump-Kim summit last month in Singapore.
According to an analysis by experts at the Stimson Center in Washington, North Korea has improved the cooling system of its plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon. Activity also continues at a nearby building where plutonium is extracted from spent fuel, and staining on the roof of another building suggests the North is enriching weapons-grade uranium using centrifuges. U.S. intelligence sources essentially confirmed this news by telling news agencies last week that the North has been increasing its production of enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.
After the June 12 summit with Kim, President Trump said that he trusts the young dictator and expects him to start fulfilling his promise to denuclearize immediately. “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea,” Mr. Trump tweeted the next day.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the President meant the threat from North Korea has been reduced. But the photos of Yongbyon show that isn’t true. Though the North stopped firing missiles and testing warheads, it can produce more weapons of mass destruction. The White House has declined to comment on the intelligence reports.
Part of the problem is that Mr. Trump didn’t get Kim to commit to a timeline for denuclearization, and Mr. Pompeo says the U.S. will not press for one. The President also failed to get the North to commit to giving the U.S. a complete list of its nuclear facilities. The U.S. could then check the list against intelligence to see if the North is being honest. Kim may now be exploiting these missed opportunities. Kim promised to dismantle a missile-testing facility at Sohae, but there’s no evidence he is doing so.
Even if there were a timeline for denuclearization, North Korea might not follow it for long. Kim’s father and grandfather reneged on every denuclearization deal they signed. But at least the U.S. could use missed deadlines to make a case for new sanctions at the United Nations Security Council. ”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/north-korea-keeps-enriching-uranium-1530481136
Don’t need to worry about if NK stops nuclear development or not. Don’t need sanctions either. Just keep reminding NK that if they use their nuclear weapons that they will be removed from the face of the earth. BOOM!
So much speculation. Yes, it’s fun to make guesses about things that could happen, might happen, should happen, would happen, blah, blah, blah. But it’s all BS.
Vox lays out the horrors of war. Yes. It could or might or would be very bad, horrible. Or not. In any case, the writer offers no solution. NONE! While VOX points out the treacherous nature of the Norks, do they also point out that the approaches taken in the past are tried and true failures and that they won’t work now any more than they did then?
So what then should happen? Silence.
Do they speculate about the future? I mean what will it look like in 5 or 10 years. Most assuredly ‘Lil Kim will have improved rockets and smaller, more powerful nukes in 10 years. Do they expect his personality or sanity to improve with age? I don’t. If anything, the threat of nuclear war will be much worse.
I grow weary with the unwillingness to face the problem. And don’t get me started on the “unidentified intelligence sources” which are now being quoted. I’ve seen this before in other contexts where they’ve turned out to be more political than analytical.
Rant off.
Gary Larson; just because:
https://farm6.static.flickr.com/5057/5532819191_51f483c411_b.jpg