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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear/u-s-rejected-north-korea-peace-talks-offer-before-last-nuclear-test-state-department-idUSKCN0VU0XE
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FEBRUARY 22, 2016 / 7:01 AM / 2 YEARS AGO
U.S. rejected North Korea peace talks offer before last nuclear test: State Department
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States rejected a North Korean proposal to discuss a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War because it did not address denuclearization on the peninsula, the State Department said on Sunday.
State Department spokesman John Kirby made the comment in response to a Wall Street Journal report that the White House secretly agreed to peace talks just before Pyongyang’s latest nuclear bomb test.
The newspaper, citing U.S. officials familiar with the events, said the Obama administration dropped its condition that Pyongyang take steps to curtail its nuclear arsenal before any peace talks take place, instead calling for North Korea’s atomic weapons program to be just one part of the discussion.
Pyongyang declined the proposal, and its Jan. 6 nuclear test ended the diplomatic plans, the newspaper reported.
“To be clear, it was the North Koreans who proposed discussing a peace treaty,” Kirby said in an emailed statement.
“We carefully considered their proposal, and made clear that denuclearization had to be part of any such discussion. The North rejected our response,” he said. “Our response to the NK proposal was consistent with our longstanding focus on denuclearization.”
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The isolated state has long sought a peace treaty with the United States and other parties in the 1950-53 Korean War, as well as an end to military exercises by South Korea and the United States, which has about 28,500 troops based in South Korea.
North Korea said on Jan. 6 it had tested a nuclear device it claimed was a hydrogen bomb, provoking condemnation from its neighbors and the United States. Weeks later, it launched a long-range rocket carrying what it called a satellite, prompting renewed criticism.
On Jan. 16, Pyongyang had demanded the conclusion of a peace treaty with the United States and a halt to U.S. military exercises with South Korea to end its nuclear tests.
But U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said then that Pyongyang needed to demonstrate by its actions that it was serious about denuclearization before any dialogues could start.
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Chinese banks freeze North Korean accounts: South Korean media report
The Korean War ended in 1953 in an armistice, not a peace treaty, signed by the United States, representing United Nations forces; the North Korean military and the Chinese army.
Now North Korea wants those three sides and South Korea to sign a treaty.
Reporting by Megan Cassella and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Jonathan Oatis
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NOVEMBER 3, 2017 / 7:32 AM / UPDATED 17 HOURS AGO
U.S. bomber drills aggravate North Korea ahead of Trump's Asia visit
Soyoung Kim, Phil Stewart
SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. strategic bombers conducted drills over South Korea, the U.S. Air Force said, raising tensions with North Korea just days before President Donald Trump visits the region seeking to shut down Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
A U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer assigned to the 37th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, takes-off to fly a bilateral mission with Japanese and South Korea Air Force jets in the vicinity of the Sea of Japan, from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, October 10, 2017. Senior Airman Jacob Skovo-Lane/U.S. Air Force/Handout via REUTERS
News of the Thursday’s drills was first reported by North Korean state news agency KCNA on Friday, which said the exercises involving South Korean and Japanese fighter jets were a “surprise nuclear strike drill”.
“The reality clearly shows that the gangster-like U.S. imperialists are the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war,” KCNA said.
Trump arrives in Asia on Sunday, beginning his first trip to the region as president in Japan before heading to South Korea and China, then Vietnam and the Philippines.
A series of missile tests by North Korea and its sixth and largest nuclear test, defying U.N. Security Council resolutions, have fueled the most critical international challenge of Trump’s presidency.
China, under U.S. pressure to do more to rein in its ally, on Friday stressed that it had been enforcing U.N. resolutions and reiterated its opposition to the use of force.
“Over the long term, China has made unremitting efforts to appropriately resolve the peninsula nuclear issue and promote dialogue and negotiation between all parties,” Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang told reporters at a briefing in Beijing.
“You can say we’ve made our greatest effort.”
The goal of Trump’s visit will be to increase international support for efforts to deprive North Korea of resources as leverage to coerce it to give up nuclear weapons, U.S. officials said.
“The president recognizes that we’re running out of time (to deal with North Korea) and will ask all nations to do more,” White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters at a briefing in Washington.
McMaster said Trump, who has approved a variety of sanctions against North Korea while pressing China to do more, was at the beginning of his drive for Pyongyang to give up nuclear weapons. Trump has warned he would “totally destroy” North Korea if it threatened the United States.
“I think we have to be a little patient here for at least a few months to see what more we and others can do, including China,” said McMaster. “I don’t think we need to reassess our strategy now. I think we have to give it a couple of months, a few months, and then see what adjustments we might need to make.”
SHOW OF FORCE
While North Korea has not launched any missiles since Sept. 15, the longest such lull this year, a flurry of activity has been detected at its missile research facilities in Pyongyang, pointing to another possible launch, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers on Thursday.
Seoul held a National Security Council meeting on Friday to discuss possible unilateral sanctions against Pyongyang, and may announce the measures ahead of Trump’s arrival in South Korea, a presidential official said.
“The United States has wanted the South Korean government to take further steps to sanction the North. Unilateral sanctions by South Korea wouldn’t have much practical impact but have a symbolic importance,” the official said.
Ahead of Trump’s visit to Asia, the drills involving the U.S. bombers marked the latest show of force by the United States and its allies.
The planes flew over the Pilsung Range training area in central South Korea, Air Force spokeswoman Captain Victoria Hight said.
Japanese and South Korean fighter jets carried out sequenced missions with the U.S. bombers but no ordnance was dropped, the Air Force said.
The drill was staged at a time when three U.S. aircraft carrier groups are in the Asia-Pacific, the first time such a potent projection of force has been together in the region in a decade.
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U.S. officials said earlier this week a decision may be made for the three carriers to carry out a joint exercise to coincide with Trump’s trip.
KCNA said the combination of the bomber drills with the presence of the carrier groups underscored the gravity of the situation.
“The U.S. imperialists are making last-ditch efforts to check the dynamic advance of the DPRK by deploying their nuclear strategic assets in succession, but its army and people are never frightened at such moves,” KCNA reported, referring to North Korea by the initials for its official name.
“The U.S. imperialist warmongers should not act rashly.”
Reporting by Soyoung Kim in SEOUL and Phil Stewart in WASHINGTON; Additional reporting by Steve Holland in WASHINGTON and Michael Martina in BEIJING; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Nick Macfie
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NOVEMBER 3, 2017 / 4:37 AM / UPDATED 14 HOURS AGO
World 'running out of time' on North Korea, Trump to tell Asia: White House
Steve Holland
4 MIN READ
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will tell leaders on a five-nation Asia tour the world is “running out of time” on North Korea’s nuclear crisis and that he will give his strategy to isolate Pyongyang a few months before making adjustments, a top aide said on Thursday.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and wife Ri Sol Ju (not pictured) visit a cosmetics factory in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang on October 28, 2017. KCNA/via REUTERS
Trump leaves on Friday for Hawaii, the first stop en route to Asia where he will visit Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. It will be the longest Asia tour by an American president in more than 25 years.
His goal will be to increase international support for an effort to deprive North Korea of resources as leverage to coerce it to give up nuclear weapons.
“The president recognizes that we’re running out of time (to deal with North Korea) and will ask all nations to do more,” White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters at a briefing.
As part of the U.S. effort to push China, North Korea’s neighbor and main trading partner, to put more pressure on Pyongyang, the U.S. Treasury issued a formal ruling on Thursday cutting off from the U.S. financial system a Chinese bank it accused of laundering money for North Korean concerns.
In June, the Treasury Department declared the Bank of Dandong a “primary money laundering concern” for serving as a gateway for North Korea to access the U.S. and international financial systems despite U.S. and U.N. sanctions. [nL1N1JQ1I4]
South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers on Thursday that North Korea may be planning a new missile test, after brisk activity was spotted at its research facilities. [L4N1N83MN]
The U.S. military is keeping a close eye on North Korea, which conducted its last missile test on Sept. 15 and its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3.
Two Guam-based U.S. B-1B bombers flew through South Korean airspace and over the country’s Pilsung Range in an exercise on Thursday, the U.S. Air Force said. [nL2N1N827P]
“The bilateral continuous bomber presence mission was planned in advance ... and was not in response to any current event,” the Air Force said in a statement.
‘DEAD END’
McMaster said Trump would urge countries with the most influence over Pyongyang to “convince its leaders that the pursuit of nuclear weapons is a dead end” and that it must denuclearize.
“And he will remind friend and foe alike that the United States stands ready to defend itself and our allies using the full range of our capabilities,” said McMaster.
China will be perhaps Trump’s most critical stop in Asia. There he will ask Chinese President Xi Jinping to do more to rein in North Korea. Senior U.S. officials say China considers North Korea a strategic asset and is reluctant to cut off resources to Pyongyang for fear of triggering a refugee wave.
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McMaster said Trump, who has approved a variety of sanctions against North Korea, is at the beginning of his drive for Pyongyang to give up nuclear weapons. Trump has warned he would “totally destroy” North Korea if it threatened the United States or its allies.
“I think we have to be a little patient here for at least a few months to see what more we and others can do, including China,” said McMaster. “I don’t think we need to reassess our strategy now. I think we have to give it a couple of months, a few months, and then see what adjustments we might need to make.”
Trump is expected to press Xi to reduce oil exports to North Korea and coal imports from Pyongyang and limit financial transactions. The Chinese leader is newly ascendant after consolidating power at a Communist Party congress.
Reporting by Steve Holland and David Alexander; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Peter Cooney
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NOVEMBER 4, 2017 / 6:00 AM / UPDATED 6 HOURS AGO
'He's such a dreamer:' Skepticism dogs U.S. envoy's North Korean peace efforts
Matt Spetalnick, Arshad Mohammed, Hyonhee Shin
8 MIN READ
WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) - Saddled with the toughest job in American diplomacy, the chief U.S. negotiator with North Korea stands between a U.S. president who insists he doesn’t want to talk and an enemy who shows no interest in listening.
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Joseph Yun (R) answers questions from reporters following meeting with Japan and South Korea chief nuclear negotiators to talk about North Korean issues at the Iikura guest house in Tokyo, Japan April 25, 2017. REUTERS/Toru Yamanaka/Pool/File Photo
While veteran State Department Asia hand Joseph Yun might be Washington’s best diplomatic hope for reducing the risk of a devastating war on the Korean peninsula, he serves an administration riven by divisions over how to handle Pyongyang.
On the other side, North Korea’s young leader, Kim Jong Un, shows little interest in negotiating either, at least not until he has developed a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.
Despite the daunting obstacles, South Korean-born Yun has told colleagues and others he hopes his diplomatic efforts can lower the temperature in a dangerous nuclear stand-off, according to Reuters interviews with more than a dozen current and former U.S. officials and South Korean diplomats.
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Most were deeply skeptical about his chances.
“He’s such a dreamer,” a White House official said, with a note of sarcasm.
“We don’t think this is going anywhere,” said another U.S. official, although he suggested it was still worthwhile to keep engaging at some level with the North Koreans as long as Yun does not appear to be undermining President Donald Trump’s public rejection of direct negotiations.
Trump has told aides that his military threats will drive North Korea to capitulate and rein in its nuclear and missile programs, four White House officials said, a view not shared among most U.S. intelligence agencies.
Yun, however, is quietly pursuing direct diplomacy with North Korean officials at the United Nations and has a mandate to discuss issues beyond the release of U.S. citizens, a senior State Department official told Reuters this week. In June, he secured the release of U.S. student Otto Warmbier, who returned to the United States in a coma and died days later.
‘RUNNING OUT OF TIME’
Trump headed to Asia on Friday as a senior aide warned the world is “running out of time” on the North Korea crisis. Behind the scenes, Yun is trying to keep open a fragile line of communication that could be used to prevent any miscalculation by one side or the other from spiraling into military conflict.
Further aggravating tensions, two U.S. strategic bombers conducted drills over South Korea on Thursday. That followed word from South Korea’s spy agency that North Korea may be preparing another missile launch.
U.S. officials have said privately that intercepting a test missile is among options under consideration, though there is disagreement within the administration about the risks.
In the midst of this is Yun, a soft-spoken, 32-year foreign service veteran who took on the job a year ago, near the end of the Obama administration.
He is grappling with Trump’s strident rhetoric as well as disagreement among the president’s top aides over whether saber-rattling will force Kim to capitulate and what the threshold for any military actions should be, according to several U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Concern about Yun’s difficulties has surfaced in Seoul, where he visits regularly and where Trump will travel next week on the second stop of his Asian tour.
Several South Korean officials expressed worry that Yun’s diplomatic efforts with North Korea lack any real underpinning of support from the White House.
“Things are clearly not easy for him,” one South Korean diplomat said. “Yun is precisely that person (to talk to North Korea), but Trump is killing the whole process.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters on Sept. 30 the United States was probing for a diplomatic opening, only to be slapped down by Trump, who told him via Twitter this was a waste of time.
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Joseph Yun answers questions from reporters following meeting with Japan and South Korea chief nuclear negotiators to talk about North Korean issues at the Iikuraguest house in Tokyo, Japan April 25, 2017. REUTERS/Toru Yamanaka/Pool/File Photo
At the same time, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who regularly briefs Trump on intelligence matters and is considered one of the most hawkish voices on North Korea in the president’s inner circle, has apparently gained stature.
Several officials familiar with those discussions say Pompeo is feeding Trump assessments that U.S. military threats will force Kim to bow to U.S. demands for nuclear disarmament, a position that some U.S. intelligence officers privately contest.
The CIA declined comment.
NORTH KOREAN NEGOTIATOR ‘SHOCKED’
A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Yun has become diplomatically “untethered,” not fully connected to a core U.S. approach that is emphasizing economic sanctions and the threat of military action rather than diplomacy.
The one tangible achievement of Yun’s diplomatic efforts in the past year was winning the release of 22-year-old Warmbier in secret talks with North Korean officials in Oslo and New York. Yun flew to Pyongyang in June to medically evacuate Warmbier.
When Choe Son Hui, head of the North Korean foreign ministry’s North America bureau, met Yun in Oslo, she was unaware of how serious Warmbier’s condition was, a source in Washington knowledgeable about the matter said.
FILE PHOTO: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks during the Second Plenum of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang October 8, 2017. KCNA/via REUTERS.
But once she learned about it she was “shocked” and Yun was summoned urgently to meet a North Korean diplomat in New York, which quickly led to Warmbier’s return home, the source said.
Warmbier’s death complicated Yun’s efforts as it contributed to a chilling of U.S.-North Korean contacts around that time, the State Department official said.
STUMBLING IN THE DARK
Despite Trump’s threats of military action against Pyongyang, the State Department official said Yun’s view was “the less you engage diplomatically, the more likely you are in the dark.”
Even so, Trump’s rhetoric has raised questions among allies, and possibly even in North Korea, about how serious, if at all, his administration is about diplomacy and how much of a mandate Yun may have to pursue it.
Trump “personalized” the conflict – deriding Kim as “Little Rocket Man” - against the advice of his national security and intelligence experts, some of whom warned it could be counterproductive, a senior national security official said.
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Another official pointed out, however, that Trump, who in May said he would be honored to meet Kim, had not hurled any fresh insults at Kim in recent days, raising hopes for an altered approach.
A South Korean official in Seoul said it was necessary for Washington to have someone in contact with North Korea to help spur future negotiations if they are ever to take hold.
But Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, told Japan’s NHK television this week: “What we cannot afford to do is enter into these long, drawn-out negotiations that allow North Korea to use these negotiations as cover for continuing their nuclear and missile programs.”
Former U.S. negotiators sympathize with Yun, whose authority to negotiate has been undercut by the tug-of-war between a White House breathing fire and a State Department pushing a peaceful solution.
“Nobody doubted my authority,” said Wendy Sherman, one of the lead U.S. negotiators who achieved the 2015 deal under which
Iran agreed to restrain its nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions. “All of this undermines our ability to do the job.”
Robert Gallucci, who was chief U.S. negotiator during the North Korean nuclear crisis of 1994 and has had recent contact with Yun, said the envoy is “realistic about the challenges of negotiating in the current atmosphere, including the tone set by the president, but he believes in the mission even as his approach is guided by realism.”
Additional reporting by James Pearson in Seoul, John Walcott and David Brunnstrom in Washington, Linda Sieg in Tokyo; Editing by Kieran Murray and Ross Colvin
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NOVEMBER 4, 2017 / 6:21 AM / UPDATED 6 HOURS AGO
North Korea calls for a halt to 'brutal' sanctions
Reuters Staff
2 MIN READ
GENEVA (Reuters) - North Korea called on Friday for a halt to what it called “brutal sanctions”, saying the measures - imposed after its latest nuclear test - constituted genocide.
FILE PHOTO: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks during the Second Plenum of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang October 8, 2017. KCNA/via REUTERS
“Today the U.S.-led racket of brutal sanctions and pressure against the DPRK constitutes contemporary human rights violation and genocide,” the North Korean mission to the United Nations in Geneva said in a statement.
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The sanctions regime “threatens and impedes the enjoyment by the people of DPRK of their human rights in all sectors”, it said.
The call for an immediate end to the sanctions comes as U.S. President Donald Trump sets off on a trip to Asia - including China, South Korea and Japan - looking for help to pressure North Korea to stand down from the nuclear crisis.
The global community has been ramping up the pressure on the isolated country after it conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test so far, on Sept. 3.
Last month the United States unilaterally imposed sanctions on seven North Korean individuals and three entities over what it called serious human rights abuses, including forced labor.
In September the U.N. Security Council strengthened its sanctions, including export bans as well as asset freezes and travel bans on various officials,
North Korea’s response follows a U.N. expert last month saying international sanctions may be hurting key economic sectors and hampering the human rights of Pyongyang’s citizens.
The sanctions meant that “some unprincipled countries have blocked the delivery of medical equipment and medicines”, the North Korean mission said on Friday, with the supplies destined for children and mothers in the country.
“All types of anti-human rights and inhumane sanctions against the DPRK should be terminated immediately and thoroughly,” it said.
Reporting by John Revill; Editing by Alison Williams
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