North Korea says little reason to maintain Kim-Trump ties: KCNA

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

WORLD NEWS JUNE 11, 2020 / 5:37 PM / UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO

North Korea says little reason to maintain Kim-Trump ties: KCNA

Sangmi Cha, Josh Smith
4 MIN READ

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea sees little use maintaining a personal relationship between leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump if Washington sticks to hostile policies, state media reported on Friday - the two-year anniversary of the leaders’ first summit.

U.S. policies prove Washington remains a long-term threat to the North Korean state and its people and North Korea will develop more reliable military forces to counter that threat, Foreign Minister Ri Son Gwon said in a statement carried by state news agency KCNA.

Trump and Kim exchanged insults and threats during 2017 as North Korea made large advances in its nuclear and missile programme and the United States responded by leading an international effort to tighten sanctions.

Relations improved significantly around the Singapore summit in June 2018, the first time a sitting American president met with a North Korean leader, but the statement that came out of the meeting was light on specifics.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-northkorea/north-korea-says-little-reason-to-maintain-kim-trump-ties-kcna-idUSKBN23I3BW

[Thomas Hurt]

1. what ties, other than Trump trying to scam Americans with his "success"...

at ridding the world of NK's nuclear weapons and NK's schmoozing the Pig with bigly letters, there has been no provable improvement or change. What caused NK to back off testing was the work of whatsherface and the UN, not the Pig.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. So much for those love letters.

[Leghorn21]

3. Man oh man, ole bunkerboi's having, like, the worst week EVER

I’M SO GLAD

[captain queeg]

4. Damn. There goes his Nobel Peace Prize

Maybe they have a category for best authoritative regime. Could be a toss up between trump, Kim, and Putin.

[Zambero]

5. Kim has used the useful idiot to his full advantage

Now that he has been elevated onto the world stage by a sitting U.S. president who has nothing to show for it, the despot formerly known as Little Rocket Man can continue to stockpile a growing nuclear arsenal and perfect a long-range delivery system. Deal or NO DEAL???

[soryang]

6. the meddling of far right North Korean defector groups in North South military relations

...cannot be expected to yield anything but negative results. An article in the Hankyoreh today reported that a representative from the group which flew balloons with propaganda leaflets across the DMZ said the balloons also included US one dollar bills. Isn't that a sanctions violation?

Flying objects across the DMZ is definitely a violation of the agreements reached between North and South Korea, and the intent of the parties doing it is to create instability and conduct their own policy toward the North in spite of the fact that they have an elected democratic government in South Korea to govern such matters. It is also clear from VOA Korea broadcasts recently that this private effort by a Korean defector group is tacitly supported by the US. The US claim that their activity is protected "free speech" is nonsense. Other North Korean defectors have expressed embarrassment and concern regarding the activities of their fellow emigres.

One North Korean defector representative expressed concern that the group that launched the propaganda balloons across the DMZ has a plan to fly drones of substantial size across the DMZ carrying propaganda messages. This is clearly a violation of the military agreements, a violation of DMZ restrictions and was described as "an act of war."