President Donald Trump on Monday stated that he was confident that North Korea would keep its promise to denuclearize.
The Hill reported that Trump also blamed China for the statements from North Korea criticizing the United States’s demands as “gangster-like.”
“I have confidence that Kim Jong Un will honor the contract we signed &, even more importantly, our handshake,” Trump tweeted. “We agreed to the denuclearization of North Korea. China, on the other hand, may be exerting negative pressure on a deal because of our posture on Chinese Trade-Hope Not!”
Meanwhile, North Korea’s rejection of the United States’s call for complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization, made after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit, raised fears of what the country’s intentions truly are.
“Pompeo certainly showed that there’s a bigger gap between Washington and Pyongyang than the administration had been depicting,” said Bruce Klingner, a former CIA division chief for Korea who is now at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Additional things Kim agreed to do at the summit are the repatriation of the remains of American soldiers killed in the Korean War and the destruction of a missile engine testing site. Those are yet to be carried out.
Pompeo after leaving Pyongyang described his meetings as “productive,” and denied the “gangster” remarks from North Korea.
“I was there for the event,” Pompeo told reporters in Japan. “I know actually what precisely took place. When we spoke to them about the scope of denuclearization, they did not push back. It wasn’t my language; it was the language of Chairman Kim. He committed to complete denuclearization.”
Trump’s critics seized on North Korea’s latest comments to argue the talks are floundering.
“Despite all the reality show pomp and circumstance, the negotiations thus far have been a flop,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer said in a floor speech on Monday.
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