Tag: North Korea

North Korea announces firing of tactical guided weapon

TOKYO — North Korea announced Thursday that it had test-fired a new tactical guided weapon, in its first public weapons test since the breakdown of a summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un in February.

It was not immediately clear what type of weapon the North Koreans fired, but experts said the description of a tactical weapon, with guided flight, capable of carrying a powerful warhead and fired at a variety of targets, suggested a short-range missile rather a longer-range ballistic missile, meaning the move would not violate North Korea’s self-declared moratorium on testing.

Nevertheless, experts said the action was a calibrated sign of defiance by Kim following a stalemate in the denuclearization talks and a reminder that his country was continuing to develop its conventional weapons program. But they said it does not close the door on diplomacy or negotiations about North Korea’s nuclear program.

View the complete April 18 article by Simon Denyer and John Hudson on The Washington Post website here.

It’s Jamal Khashoggi all over again with Trump and Otto Warmbier

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testified March 27, answering questions from Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) about the death of U.S. student Otto Warmbier. (C-Span)

Pompeo has now repeatedly declined to blame Kim Jong Un personally for human rights abuses

When the president you serve speaks glowingly about strongmen, it makes your job as his chief diplomat more difficult. Yes, sometimes you have to deal with such leaders, but you also need to avoid legitimizing them. You may be on the verge of cutting a deal, but does that mean you give the autocrat a pass on humanitarian abuses — even ones directly involving the United States?

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been through this already with Jamal Khashoggi. Now he’s going through it with Otto Warmbier.

And on Wednesday, he got testy over it.

View the complete March 27 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.

Trump surprises his own aides by reversing North Korea sanctions

Following hours of uncertainty, administration officials later insisted the president was not referring to newly announced sanctions.

PALM BEACH, Florida — President Donald Trump on Friday set off widespread confusion across the administration when he appeared to announce that he would undo recently imposed sanctions on North Korea.

Following hours of uncertainty, administration officials later insisted that Trump was not referring to the new sanctions on North Korea that his administration rolled out just a day before. Instead, the officials claimed, the president was declaring that he was opposing not-yet-announced sanctions on Pyongyang.

Trump’s sudden tweet left the White House groping for an explanation for much of Friday, telling reporters only that Trump “likes” North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

View the complete March 22 article by Andrew Restuccia and Caitlin Oprysko on the Politico website here.

Trump says he’s reversing North Korea sanctions imposed by his Treasury Department

President Trump said Friday he would reverse sanctions against North Korea that were recently announced by the Treasury Department, a surprise declaration that sparked confusion in Washington and raised fresh doubts about the White House’s policy process.

In a tweet, Trump wrote that “it was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions” would be imposed in addition to “already existing Sanctions on North Korea.”

“I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!” the president added.

New Photos Show North Korea Rebuilding Missile Test Site

On Tuesday, NBC News reported that researchers at Beyond Parallel have photos showing North Korea is pursuing the “rapid rebuilding” of a major rocket launch site, and evidence suggests they may be gearing up to resume missile testing:

Sohae Satellite Launching Station, North Korea’s only operational space launch facility, has been used in the past for satellite launches. These launches use similar technology to what is used for intercontinental ballistic missiles.

“This renewed activity, taken just two days after the inconclusive Hanoi Summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, may indicate North Korean plans to demonstrate resolve in the face of U.S. rejection of North Korea’s demands at the summit to lift five UN Security Council sanctions enacted in 2016-2017,” the analysts said. As NBC News reported, Beyond Parallel, a project sponsored by the defense think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), recently identified 20 undisclosed missile sites in North Korea.

View the complete March 5 article by Matthew Chapman on the National Memo website here.

John Bolton tried to explain away Trump’s Otto Warmbier comments — and it went poorly

Serving President Trump often means trying to square a rhetorical circle. Sometimes it requires pretending he didn’t say what he said. Other times you’ll (gently) distance yourself from something you clearly regard as ridiculous.

And if you’re John Bolton on Sunday, it’s both.

On two Sunday shows, Trump’s national security adviser was asked to account for Trump’s controversial comments about Otto Warmbier. Before Trump departed from their failed Hanoi summit last week, he gave North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a little gift. He said he didn’t believe Kim knew Warmbier, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student, had been mistreated in a North Korean prison before his death. This strained credulity, to say the least.

View the complete March 4 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.

Trump blames Cohen testimony in part for failed deal with North Korea

On Feb. 28, President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ended their Hanoi summit, aimed at negotiating North Korea’s denuclearization, without a deal. Credit: Jason Aldag, The Washington Post

President Trump said Sunday that the congressional testimony of Michael Cohen, his former personal lawyer and fixer, was in part responsible for the collapse in negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear program last week — continuing to vent about the investigations encircling him and his associates.

During seven hours of testimony Wednesday, Cohen said that Trump manipulated financial records and that Trump knew in advance about WikiLeaks’ efforts to release damaging information about his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, during the 2016 campaign, among other allegations.

The testimony unfolded as Trump had traveled to Hanoi to try to forge a deal with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over curbing the North Korean nuclear program.

View the complete March 3 article by Seung Min Kim on The Washington Post website here.

GOP senators fuming over Trump comments on Warmbier

Republican senators were steaming Thursday over President Trump’s vehement defense of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s role in the death of American college student Otto Warmbier.

Trump’s statement that he believed Kim when he said he didn’t know at the time of Warmbier’s treatment left a number of GOP senators upset.

“I personally find that statement extremely hard to believe,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

View the complete March 1 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Trump suffers disappointing setback with North Korea

President Trump suffered a significant blow on Thursday when his nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un unexpectedly collapsed.

Trump traveled halfway around the world to Vietnam on a mission to broker a historic nuclear accord with Kim, with whom he has spent more than a year building a personal relationship in order to deliver on his No. 1 foreign policy goal of ridding North Korea of nuclear weapons.

Instead, the self-styled negotiator in chief left the two-day summit with no deal after failing to persuade the North Korean strongman to commit to surrendering his arsenal.

View the complete February 28 article by Jordan Fabian on The Hill website here.

3 takeaways: Trump-Kim collapse ‘a breakdown that … didn’t need to happen’

What now? Analysts see difficult path to a deal — and a distracted U.S. president

ANALYSIS — The table was set for a working lunch inside a posh Hanoi hotel, silverware wrapped in carefully folded napkins atop yellow plates flanked by flowers placed on a long rectangular table. But President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un never stepped foot in the room — and their path to a deal is newly murky.

Reporters in Vietnam for the duo’s second nuclear disarmament summit were positioned on one side of the room, some tweeting pictures of the lunch table as they waited. Soon came this dispatch from the day’s print pooler, David Nakamura of the Washington Post, quoting a White House spokeswoman: “There has been a program change.”

Jim Sciutto

✔@jimsciutto

The table was set and food prepared for a working Trump-Kim lunch that now won’t happen.

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That announcement, it turned out, was an understatement.

View the complete February 28 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.