President Donald Trump on Tuesday brushed off North Korea’s warning of a “Christmas gift,” saying the United States would “deal with it very successfully,” amid U.S. concerns that Pyongyang might be preparing a long-range missile test, Reuters writes.
China, North Korea’s most important backer, meanwhile, urged Washington to take “concrete steps” as soon as possible to implement agreements reached during last year’s summit between Trump and North Korea leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in comments relayed on Twitter by the foreign ministry in Beijing, called on North Korea and the United States to work out “a feasible roadmap for establishing a permanent peace regime & realizing complete denuclearization on the (Korean) Peninsula.”
North Korea warned this month of a possible “Christmas gift” for Washington after Kim gave the United States until the end of the year to propose new concessions in talks over his country’s nuclear arsenal and reducing tensions between the adversaries, Reuters added.
“We’ll find out what the surprise is and we’ll deal with it very successfully,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort. “We’ll see what happens.”
“Maybe it’s a nice present,” he quipped. “Maybe it’s a present where he sends me a beautiful vase as opposed to a missile test.”
In issuing its warning, North Korea accused Washington of trying to drag out denuclearization talks ahead of Trump’s re-election bid next year and said it was “entirely up to the U.S. what Christmas gift it will select to get.”
U.S. military commanders have said that the North Korean response could involve the testing of a long-range missile, something North Korea has suspended, along with nuclear bomb tests, since 2017. Trump has repeatedly held up the test suspensions as evidence that his policy of engaging with North Korea works.
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