WASHINGTON/SEOUL: US President Donald Trump welcomed North Korea’s statement on Friday that it was still open to talks with the US after Trump called off a summit with leader Kim Jong Un, saying he still held out hopes for peace.
“Very good news to receive the warm and productive statement from North Korea,” Trump wrote. “We will soon see where it will lead, hopefully to long and enduring prosperity and peace. Only time (and talent) will tell!” Trump said on Twitter.
Trump pulled out of what would have been the first meeting between a serving US president and a North Korean leader, citing North Korea’s “tremendous anger and open hostility” in a letter to Kim on Thursday.
His decision came after repeated threats by North Korea to pull out of the June 12 summit in Singapore over what it saw as confrontational remarks by American officials.
North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan said North Korea’s recent criticisms of certain US officials had been a reaction to unbridled American rhetoric and that the current antagonism showed “the urgent necessity” for the summit.
“His sudden and unilateral announcement to cancel the summit is something unexpected to us and we cannot but feel great regret for it,” Kim Kye Gwan said in a statement on state media.
He added that North Korea remained open to resolving issues with Washington “regardless of ways, at any time.” North Korea had sharply criticised suggestions by Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, and Vice President Mike Pence that it could share the fate of Libya if it did not swiftly surrender its nuclear arsenal. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was deposed and killed by Nato-backed militants after halting his nascent nuclear programme.
Kim Kye Gwan said North Korea appreciated Trump for having made the bold decision to work towards a summit.
“We even inwardly hoped that what is called ‘Trump formula’ would help clear both sides of their worries and comply with the requirements of our side and would be a wise way of substantial effect for settling the issue,” he said, without elaborating.
Trump had initially sought to placate North Korea, saying that he was not pursuing the “Libya model” in getting the North to abandon its nuclear weapons programme. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: “This is the President Trump model. He’s going to run this the way he sees fit.”
NUCLEAR SITE DECOMMISSIONED
While the Trump administration had insisted on North Korea’s complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of its nuclear programme, Pyongyang had always couched its language in terms of denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.
It has said in previous, failed talks that it could consider giving up its arsenal if the US provided security guarantees by removing its troops from South Korea and withdrawing its so-called nuclear umbrella of deterrence from South Korea and Japan.
North Korea on Thursday said it had completely dismantled its Punggye-ri nuclear test facility “to ensure the transparency of discontinuance” of nuclear testing.
Some analysts are worried the cancelling of the summit could prompt a resumption in hostilities, including renewed shorter-range missile tests or stepped-up cyber attacks by Pyongyang and increased sanctions or deployment of new military assets by Washington.
In his letter, Trump warned Kim of the US’s greater nuclear might, reminiscent of the president’s tweet last year asserting that he had a “much bigger” nuclear button than Kim.
North Korea’s measured response provided some solace for nervous financial markets, with Asian shares almost flat.
China, North Korea’s lone major ally, said the US and North Korea should show patience and goodwill.
China has publicly urged the US and North Korea to keep up the dialogue. But Trump had suggested in recent days that Kim’s more defiant tone followed a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“He thought they were playing him. He thinks China is sort of pulling back North Korea,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who spoke with Trump on Thursday, told NBC’s Today show.
Graham said Trump’s preferred route is through peace.
“But if diplomacy fails, then military action is the only thing left and it would be the utter destruction of the North Korean regime, which would come at a high price,” he said.
Many South Koreans reacted angrily to the announcement, feeling they had been cheated of a chance to live in peace.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who worked hard to help set up the summit and urged Trump at a White House meeting on Tuesday not to let a rare opportunity slip away, said he was “perplexed” by the cancellation. He urged Trump and Kim to talk directly.
South Korea also would continue efforts to improve ties with the North, the presidential office said after Moon’s top security advisers met for the second time on Friday.
