Why North Korea wants nuclear weapons

[JustTime]

There is the concept of seeking refuge from the strong infidel and the weak believer, and the fact that the guide who assisted in the migration of The Two was a mushrik in whom there was sufficient trust to fulfil the required task.
Although i think some of these so called "rebel" leaders are puppets who simply fulfil the role of keeping huge arms races and huge defence budgets justified as the bankers who fund all countries with fiat print and digital currency continue to consolidate power before the impending financial collapse.

And have you ever taken the time to realize this is what the people you claim to hate want you to think? It is said in the end times people will tell lies and a majority of the Earth will be misguided and Muslims will be a minority and it will be the hardest Fitna of all. All these types that cling to Majuj Russia and Yajooj Iran and the Axis of Hellfire that whine about Zionism are too blind to realize they are fools.

If North Korea had the resources America has and its influence and America was in North Korea's place you would see how evil these 'anti-imperialists' are. The Communist atheists and polytheists are the lowest scum of the Earth after the Rafidha and they are naturally allied as the Ahzab of today.

These conspiracy theories about bankers and Jews are made up by those very people to exaggerate their own status and cause debate and discord and to destroy Tawakkul in Allah (Tala). Do you really think that secret apparatuses and agencies have this much power like they do in movies and television? Victory isn't from tactics, weapons, bombs or intelligence it is from Allah the most high. Omar Ibn Khattab :ra: even dismissed Khalid Ibn Walid :ra: over this when people credited him with victory Omar relieved him of his position and he told Khalid "I have not dismissed Khalid because of my anger or because of any dishonesty on his part, but because people glorified him and were misled. I feared that people would rely on him. I want them to know that it is Allah who give us victory; and there should be no mischief in the land."
Not even the greatest warrior in history was allowed to be attributed such things and he was the Sword of Allah, yet you think that people who prior to the existence of their state lived in camps and were hunted and persecuted can orchestrate the outcomes of wars and dominate the Muslims? Yes Islam and this Ummah are in a humiliating and weak place as it is right now but it is not the fault of Israel, America, or even the Devils of Russia and Iran it is this Ummah's own fault.

You must also remember Allah is the best of planners and when they plan he plans, Jerusalem will continue to be occupied until this Ummah is worthy to control Jerusalem Syria and many other nations will continue to suffer likewise until the people abandon Hizbiya and tribalistic ways and rely on Allah alone not foreign backers and the opinions.

And in regards to North Korea they are polytheists and while you could blame America for all sorts of issues that is not the issue here the issue here is Al wala wa Bara. North Korea was established by the Soviet Union who brutally invaded Afghanistan for the sake of Atheistic Communism and China that Officially made Islam a crime as a proxy to counter weight the American agenda post-WW2. They spread their mischief throughout the world from Korea to Vietnam to Europe to the Americas and the heartland of our Ummah the Arab nations of Sham and Yemen and Khorasan. Their feuding eventually lead to their battles to be fought slaughtering Muslims they have even come together doing it while hating one another because of their mutual arrogance.

Allah says in the Quran:
ظَهَرَ ٱلْفَسَادُ فِى ٱلْبَرِّ وَٱلْبَحْرِ بِمَا كَسَبَتْ أَيْدِى ٱلنَّاسِ لِيُذِيقَهُم بَعْضَ ٱلَّذِى عَمِلُوا۟ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْجِعُونَ
Mischief has appeared on land and sea because of (the meed) that the hands of men have earned, that (Allah) may give them a taste of some of their deeds: in order that they may turn back (from Evil).
(30:41)

If you can condemn the atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine then surely you must be filled with an equal level of anger for those who were murdered by Apostates, Atheists, and Fire-worshipers. They are the worse the ones who lie like Russia, Iran, and North Korea they are the biggest liars and hypocrites. If you can whine about a Palestinian killed by Israeli rockets then where is the whining for the Yemeni killed by a Houthi rocket supplied by either NK or Iran, or is it that a Palestinian is superior to a Yemeni? If you condemn the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem where is the condemnation for Houthi missile attacks on Mecca? If you condemn a Palestinian boy shot by IDF then what of the Sunni boys hung in Iran and what of Syria and Iraq? If you condemn the atrocities in Palestine such as land grabbing and settlements how about the Kurds who are stealing Arab land from their own Sunni brothers and choosing nationalism over Deen and these are descendants of Salah ad Din or even worse the Rafidha death squads from HezbuLAT killing and hunting Sunnis while acting like they care about Palestine. And is Russia to be forgiven for Chechnya and Afghanistan? Is it okay now to ignore their assistance in Alawite-Majoosi genocide of Ahlus Sunnah because they are 'anti-Zionist' is it okay to bomb Mosques and hospitals is it okay to lie and distort information is it okay to ignore their past crimes are we just going to ignore Chechnya because it isn't Palestine? Are we going to ignore Aleppo and Mosul because it isn't Gaza? To deny any of the crimes committed by Russia and Iran is a sin, and I sincerely ask Allah to damn those who deny these crimes and those who support them.

Are these dogs you want in Palestine the oppressors? The one who claim to be 'Muslim' who claim to be the 'Partisans of Ali' while they'd gladly kill a Sunni with a Kalashnikov from the most beloved North Korea?

When Allah resurrects every living being and when those who were murdered the innocent men, women, children, animals, and trees slaughtered by the Russians and Shias within the last few years come back and when the testify what will be the position of those who sat silently not making so much as a Dua for them and not even simply acknowledging the fact a major transgression has occurred, how humiliated will those be who denied and ignored their brothers and sisters because the only words they knew were Zionists, Bankers, and Puppets. How humiliating Wallahi in front of the entire world in front of Prophets and Companions and everyone else who ever lived what a loathsome existence it must be to be more worried about the security some arrogant atheist pig who hates Islam and Allah and his hellhole country full of people that worship him than his own brothers, this is absolutely no different from the Mongol invasion of Mesopotamia and it is the same perpetrators as well against Ahlus Sunnah.

Wallahi if this is the attitude in this Ummah you will never see Jerusalem liberated.

 

[Abz2000]

Umm, the same people who purchased, donated, designed, and set up the u.n building in manhattan (who are basically offshoots and underdogs of the crooked brothers who funded mayhem in europe and then flipped on napoleon, shorted england and bought up the bulk of choice stock on the london stock exchange at rock bottom) are the very same people who funded the experiments in china along with the one china and one child policies, and their histories in surgical mass killing, eugenics, abortions, social engineering, and proxy revolutions are no secret either.

http://www.whale.to/b/rockefeller_q.html


The first two quotes are sufficient for getting a basic idea of how these people think and what they do to achieve such goals.

There is also the movie released around .... ww2, the gold confiscation, the u.n acceptance of the illegal occupation of half of palestine - (the holy land) by european jews, the declaration of independence of pakistan - (the clean land) and mass migration after huge massacres and lynchings of indian Muslims as a result of colonialist divide and rule policies - which was made to look like it was being "given" to Muslims (despite the fact that they were simply being moved from one part of india to others where they were more in the majority anyway) - under a different name and secular governement......
It's called "the house of rothschild" although heavily romanticized and fully sympathetic to the rothschild point of view, it gives an idea of how international events actually move and can be manipupated without the scrutiny of people due to the absence of media spotlight. The movie was like a normalisation statement and an in your face "get over it, it happened before and we're playing money god games (for those who worship capital) for ages anyway.

These good cop bad cop games are getting old and worn out, there is a reason why war is declared on usurers and it's becoming starkly apparent that usury siphons from outsput, synthetically subverts and destroys markets, and causes corruption and wars in order for the money illusionists to keep siphoning, floating, and bloating their share of the cake - and the cake is always the same size, so no actual interest, just repossession of actual property globally via fraud.

Anyways, please watch if u get time.

 

[Misbah-Abd]

If North Korea wants nuclear weapons then who is the West especially the U.S. to tell them that they cannot. The U.S. doesn't have the moral authority to say who can be responsible for having them when they are the only nation on earth to use it on a people when the war was practically over with Japan but just wanted to use them on a civilian population to see the desired effects. This also applies to Iran or any other country. A nation has the right to defend itself by any means necessary and with the history of sanctions, passive aggressive diplomacy, and other intimidating tactics the North Koreans have dealt with then you can't blame them. If the U.S., Russia, China and rest of the nuclear weapon nations want those countries not to have them they can begin by getting rid of theirs as a gesture of good will otherwise spare the world the hypocrisy.

 

[JustTime]

If North Korea wants nuclear weapons then who is the West especially the U.S. to tell them that they cannot. The U.S. doesn't have the moral authority to say who can be responsible for having them when they are the only nation on earth to use it on a people when the war was practically over with Japan but just wanted to use them on a civilian population to see the desired effects. This also applies to Iran or any other country. A nation has the right to defend itself by any means necessary and with the history of sanctions, passive aggressive diplomacy, and other intimidating tactics the North Koreans have dealt with then you can't blame them. If the U.S., Russia, China and rest of the nuclear weapon nations want those countries not to have them they can begin by getting rid of theirs as a gesture of good will otherwise spare the world the hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy isn't the question here or the issue, the issue is that these countries do not have a right to defend themselves or secure themselves in particular the North Korean Juche polytheists and atheists and the Iranian Safawi Majoos. If the greater Islamic Ummah was in the position of America, Europe or Russia or any other power wielding nation and had their influence and resources not only would we put the strictest and harshest restrictions on nations like North Korea or Iran but they would be invaded and subjugated. Not only would they not be warned with ultimatums there would be no warnings only primitive strikes reminiscent of Operation Iraqi 'Freedom' unto Tehran and Pyongyang and Apartheid and Partition would seem like a children's tale compared to what would be imposed on the North Koreans for so much as contemplating having nuclear weapons.

But not only do they disbelieve they are at war with Islam and its people their allies like Russia and Iran are the upmost brutal towards Islam North Korea arms Rafidha death squads in Iraq and Syria North Korea supports Assad North Korea loves Putin. North Korea's main ally China has been oppressing Uyghur Muslims China is so oppressive towards Islam, Islam is a crime in under Chinese Communist Law even though it was generations of Muslims from Uyghurs and the Hui who aided in unifying a majority of China.

Russia the den of Yajuj and Majuj the nation of mischief and evil the land where Jinns occupy the Siberian forests and wasteland tundras has been oppressing Islam and its people for generations for hundreds of years under various leaders and banners from Monarch Orthodox Kings to Atheist Communist Dictators to today under Putin the dog of ifreet and iblis.

You should be ashamed for standing up for these pathetic North Koreans while Muslims die as a result of their satanic actions. I sincerely hope North Korea is leveled like so many of our nations have been.

 

[Misbah-Abd]

Hypocrisy isn't the question here or the issue, the issue is that these countries do not have a right to defend themselves or secure themselves in particular the North Korean Juche polytheists and atheists and the Iranian Safawi Majoos. If the greater Islamic Ummah was in the position of America, Europe or Russia or any other power wielding nation and had their influence and resources not only would we put the strictest and harshest restrictions on nations like North Korea or Iran but they would be invaded and subjugated. Not only would they not be warned with ultimatums there would be no warnings only primitive strikes reminiscent of Operation Iraqi 'Freedom' unto Tehran and Pyongyang and Apartheid and Partition would seem like a children's tale compared to what would be imposed on the North Koreans for so much as contemplating having nuclear weapons.

But not only do they disbelieve they are at war with Islam and its people their allies like Russia and Iran are the upmost brutal towards Islam North Korea arms Rafidha death squads in Iraq and Syria North Korea supports Assad North Korea loves Putin. North Korea's main ally China has been oppressing Uyghur Muslims China is so oppressive towards Islam, Islam is a crime in under Chinese Communist Law even though it was generations of Muslims from Uyghurs and the Hui who aided in unifying a majority of China.

Russia the den of Yajuj and Majuj the nation of mischief and evil the land where Jinns occupy the Siberian forests and wasteland tundras has been oppressing Islam and its people for generations for hundreds of years under various leaders and banners from Monarch Orthodox Kings to Atheist Communist Dictators to today under Putin the dog of ifreet and iblis.

You should be ashamed for standing up for these pathetic North Koreans while Muslims die as a result of their satanic actions. I sincerely hope North Korea is leveled like so many of our nations have been.

I was speaking for the right of any nation to defend itself. You should also wish the same for those Western countries who have done more to destroy Islam and Muslims than North Korea. I don't see North Korea military presence in the Middle East flying drones and airstrike sorties. Unless of course you have a shameful excuse for their reasons to do so.

 

[JustTime]

I was speaking for the right of any nation to defend itself. You should also wish the same for those Western countries who have done more to destroy Islam and Muslims than North Korea. I don't see North Korea military presence in the Middle East flying drones and airstrike sorties. Unless of course you have a shameful excuse for their reasons to do so.

They provide the weapons for those who do it mainly Assad and Iranian proxies they enable them and encourage them to commit their crimes.

 

[Misbah-Abd]

They provide the weapons for those who do it mainly Assad and Iranian proxies they enable them and encourage them to commit their crimes.

Right and you are completely oblivious to the fact that the U.S. and its Western Allies have bombed Muslim lands. Quit being stubborn or willfully ignorant of what is going on.

 

[Karl]

Hypocrisy isn't the question here or the issue, the issue is that these countries do not have a right to defend themselves or secure themselves in particular the North Korean Juche polytheists and atheists and the Iranian Safawi Majoos. If the greater Islamic Ummah was in the position of America, Europe or Russia or any other power wielding nation and had their influence and resources not only would we put the strictest and harshest restrictions on nations like North Korea or Iran but they would be invaded and subjugated. Not only would they not be warned with ultimatums there would be no warnings only primitive strikes reminiscent of Operation Iraqi 'Freedom' unto Tehran and Pyongyang and Apartheid and Partition would seem like a children's tale compared to what would be imposed on the North Koreans for so much as contemplating having nuclear weapons.

But not only do they disbelieve they are at war with Islam and its people their allies like Russia and Iran are the upmost brutal towards Islam North Korea arms Rafidha death squads in Iraq and Syria North Korea supports Assad North Korea loves Putin. North Korea's main ally China has been oppressing Uyghur Muslims China is so oppressive towards Islam, Islam is a crime in under Chinese Communist Law even though it was generations of Muslims from Uyghurs and the Hui who aided in unifying a majority of China.

Russia the den of Yajuj and Majuj the nation of mischief and evil the land where Jinns occupy the Siberian forests and wasteland tundras has been oppressing Islam and its people for generations for hundreds of years under various leaders and banners from Monarch Orthodox Kings to Atheist Communist Dictators to today under Putin the dog of ifreet and iblis.

You should be ashamed for standing up for these pathetic North Koreans while Muslims die as a result of their satanic actions. I sincerely hope North Korea is leveled like so many of our nations have been.

Hmmm very blood thirsty and you have problems with the anti Zionists too. Is the annihilation of peoples because they are not perfect Muslims really the answer? If Islam becomes some big intolerant global totalitarian order, wont it become just another evil force? At least these munkar atheists are not doing evil in Gods name. The vicious circle of war and revenge is not of a Holy nature, but of a base nature of darkness. How can you expect paradise if you follow that path?

 

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Trump announces 'heaviest ever' North Korea sanctions

Latest US sanctions on North Korea are the 'heaviest ever', President Donald Trump says.

The US has imposed its "heaviest ever" sanctions against North Korea, President Donald Trump says, as the US seeks to prevent North Korea from further developing its nuclear programme. The measures - aimed at disrupting North Korean shipping companies and vessels - will heighten pressure on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, a US treasury department statement, said on Friday.

"This will significantly hinder the Kim regime's capacity to conduct evasive maritime activities that facilitate illicit coal and fuel transports, and erode its abilities to ship goods through international waters," Steven Mnuchin, treasury secretary, said.

"The president has made it clear to companies worldwide that if they choose to help fund North Korea's nuclear ambitions, they will not do business with the United States."

The new sanctions target almost all shipping currently being used by North Korea, Mnuchin said. The measures prohibit US citizens from dealing with more than 50 vessels and companies, and one person, located in countries including North Korea, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Assets held by the firms within the US will also be blocked.

Trump described the measures as the "heaviest sanctions ever imposed on a country before" in an address in Washington on Friday.

He cautioned the US will "have to go to phase two" if the sanctions don't have Washington's desired impact, adding that "may be a very rough thing ... very unfortunate for the world", Reuters news agency reported.

UN sanctions

The announcement comes two months after the UN Security Council said it was imposing its toughest sanctions yet on North Korea. The Security Council unanimously voted to ban nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea, and order North Koreans who work abroad to return to the country within 24 months, on December 22. North Korea announced in November it had successfully conducted a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the US mainland.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's government conducted several missile tests last year, drawing condemnation from the international community. Tensions on the Korean Peninsula appear to have eased in the last few weeks, however, with South Korea expressing it was cautiously optimistic of making progress with inter-Korean relations in the wake of a visit by North Korean officials during the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/02/trump-announces-heaviest-north-korea-sanctions-180223210930230.html

 

[سيف الله]

Salaam

More comment.

 

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Wasnt expecting this, North Koreans are cracking under the enormous pressure.

Kim Jong-un to meet Trump by May after North Korean invitation

South Korea’s national security adviser confirms historic talks after relaying offer from Pyongyang to White House

Donald Trump has accepted an invitation from the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, to hold an unprecedented summit meeting to discuss the future of the embattled regime’s nuclear and missile programme.

In a stunning development following months of tension and mutual sabre-rattling, senior South Korean officials appeared outside the White House to announce the news, having verbally conveyed Kim’s invitation to Trump. The White House confirmed Trump was ready to meet Kim “by May”, at a time and location yet to be determined.

If the meeting takes place it would be the first ever between leaders of the two countries. Pyongyang has long sought a summit with the US to reflect what the regime sees as its status as a regional military power. Bill Clinton came close to agreeing to a meeting with Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, in 2000, but arrangements had not been made by the time he left office in January 2001.

Administration officials on Thursday portrayed the invitation as a victory for Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” and stressed that the US would not relax its stringent sanctions regime before North Korea began disarming. A senior official said Trump “is not prepared to reward North Korea in exchange for talks”.

Pak Song-il, North Korea’s ambassador to the UN, praised Kim for his “broad-minded” and “courageous” decision in quotes reported by the Washington Post. He advised the US to contribute to peace by bringing a “sincere position and serious attitude”.

Moon Jae-in, South Korea’s president, praised the possible meeting as a “historic milestone” on the way to peace on the peninsula.

Trump himself confirmed the meeting in a tweet, adding that US sanctions would remain in place until a denuclearisation deal was achieved.

The development was announced by South Korean national security director Chung Eui-yong, flanked by intelligence chief Suh Hoon and Cho Yoon-je, South Korea’s ambassador to US.

The invitation, Chung said, was accompanied by an offer to suspend missile and nuclear tests, the condition US officials have laid down for the start of any substantive talks.

Chung is expected to head to Moscow and Beijing, while Suh will travel to Tokyo. Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe said on Friday he “highly appreciated” the surprise announcement and planned to visit Trump “as early as April”.

Japan has been cautious about the recent Olympics-driven rapprochement, with Abe warning on Thursday that “talks for the sake of talks are meaningless”. On Friday, he cautioned there would be no change in policy yet: “We will keep putting maximum pressure until North Korea takes concrete actions toward denuclearisation in a manner that is complete, verifiable and irreversible.”

Japan’s foreign ministry said Abe and Trump spoke by phone shortly before the announcement.

In a statement, the White House said: “President Trump greatly appreciates the nice words of the South Korean delegation and President Moon. He will accept the invitation to meet with Kim Jong-un at a place and time to be determined. We look forward to the denuclearisation of North Korea. In the meantime, all sanctions and maximum pressure must remain.”

The South Korean delegation had met the North Korean leader in Pyongyang on Monday. Announcing the delivery of the invitation in a hastily arranged press statement outside the White House, Chung praised Trump’s “leadership”.

“I told President Trump that in our meeting, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, said he is committed to denuclearisation,” Chung said. “Kim Jong-un pledged that North Korea will refrain from any further nuclear or missile tests. He understands the routine joint military exercises between the Republic of Korea and the United States must continue.”

He added that the Kim had “expressed his eagerness to meet President Trump as soon as possible”.

“President Trump appreciated the briefing and said he would meet Kim Jong-un by May to achieve permanent denuclearisation.”

White House officials said the US national security adviser, HR McMaster, would brief the UN security council on Monday.

There have been no significant negotiations between the US and North Korea since 2012, when the two sides agreed a short-lived moratorium on long-range missiles and nuclear weapons activity in return for food aid. The agreement fell apart after Pyongyang launched a satellite with a powerful rocket that could be used in a missile.

A deal struck in 1994 lasted considerably longer but fell apart as a result of mutual distrust. It is far from clear that a new deal would be any more enduring.

Mintaro Oba, a former state department official involved in North Korean policy under the Obama administration, urged caution.

“This is a welcome step that will help us de-escalate dangerous tensions on the Korean Peninsula in the near term – and hopefully lead to progress toward denuclearisation. That said, we must manage our expectations given our knowledge of North Korea’s interests and past behaviour. There is a long and complicated road ahead.

“When President Trump meets with Kim Jong-un, he should not allow the meeting to be purely about optics. He should bring a bold proposal for progress toward denuclearisation, putting the onus on North Korea to respond in good faith.”

Jon Wolfsthal, special assistant to Obama on arms control and non-proliferation, said: “The US must pursue this idea. Scepticism is healthy but the chance for progress is too good to pass up.”

But Wolfsthal added that the May deadline for talks was “almost incredible”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/08/donald-trump-north-korea-kim-jong-un-meeting-may-letter-invite-talks-nuclear-weapons

 

[سيف الله]

Salaam

More comment and analysis.

The DPRK’s Denuclearization Project: South Korean Report on Summit Discredits U.S. Elites’ Assumption

Media coverage of and political reactions to Donald Trump’s announcement of a summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have been based on the assumption that it cannot succeed, because Kim will reject the idea of denuclearization. But the full report by South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s national security adviser on the meeting with Kim last week—covered by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency but not covered in U.S. news media—makes it clear that Kim will present Trump with a plan for complete denuclearization linked to the normalization of relations between the U.S. and North Korea, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The report by Chung Eui-yong on a dinner hosted by Kim Jong Un for the 10-member South Korean delegation on March 5 said the North Korea leader had affirmed his “commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” and that he “would have no reason to possess nuclear weapons should the safety of [his] regime be guaranteed and military threats against North Korea removed.” Chung reported that Kim expressed his willingness to discuss “ways to realize the denuclearization of the peninsula and normalize [U.S.-DPRK] bilateral ties.”

But in what may be the most important finding in the report, Chung added,

“What we must especially pay attention to is the fact that [Kim Jong Un] has clearly stated that the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was an instruction of his predecessor and that there has been no change to such an instruction.”

The South Korean national security adviser’s report directly contradicts the firmly held belief among U.S. national security and political elites that Kim Jong Un would never give up the DPRK’s nuclear weapons. As Colin Kahl, former Pentagon official and adviser to Barack Obama, commented in response to the summit announcement,

“It Is simply inconceivable that he will accept full denuclearization at this point.”

But Kahl’s dismissal of the possibility of any agreement at the summit assumes, without saying so, a continuation of the steadfast refusal of the Bush and Obama administrations for the United States to offer any incentive to North Korean in the form of a new peace treaty with North Korea and full normalization of diplomatic and economic relations.

That pattern of U.S. policy is one side of the still-unknown story of the politics of the North Korean issue. The other side of the story is North Korea’s effort to use its nuclear and missile assets as bargaining chips get the United States to strike a deal that would change the U.S. stance of enmity toward North Korea.

The Cold War background of the issue is that DPRK had demanded that the United States military command in South Korea stop its annual “Team Spirit” exercises with South Korean forces, which began in 1976 and involved nuclear-capable U.S. planes. The Americans knew those exercises scared the North Koreans because, as Leon V. Sigal recalled in his authoritative account of U.S.-North Korean nuclear negotiations, “Disarming Strangers,” the United States had made explicit nuclear threats against the DPRK on seven occasions.

But the end of the Cold War in 1991 presented an even more threatening situation. When the Soviet Union collapsed, and Russia disengaged from former Soviet bloc allies, North Korea suddenly suffered the equivalent of a 40 percent reduction in imports, and its industrial base imploded. The rigidly state-controlled economy was thrown into chaos.

Meanwhile, the unfavorable economic and military balance with South Korea had continued to grow in the final two decades of the Cold War. Whereas per capita GDP for the two Koreas had been virtually identical up to the mid-1970s, they had diverged dramatically by 1990, when per capita GDP in the South, which had more than twice the population of the North, was already four times greater than that of North Korea.

Furthermore, the North had been unable to invest in replacing its military technology, so had to make do with antiquated tanks, air defense systems and aircraft from the 1950s and 1960s, while South Korea had continued to receive the latest technology from the United States. And after serious economic crisis gripped the North, a large proportion of its ground forces had to be diverted to economic production tasks, including harvesting, construction and mining. Those realities made it increasingly clear to military analysts that the Korean People’s Army (KPA) no longer even had the capability to carry out an operation in South Korea for longer than a few weeks.

Finally, the Kim regime now found itself in the uncomfortable situation of being far more dependent on China for economic assistance than ever before. Faced with this powerful combination of threatening developments, DPRK founder Kim Il-Sung embarked immediately after the Cold War on a radically new security strategy: to use North Korea’s incipient nuclear and missile programs to draw the United States into a broader agreement that would establish a normal diplomatic relationship. The first move in that long strategic game came in January 1992, when the ruling Korean Workers’ Party Secretary Kim Young Sun revealed a startling new DPRK posture toward the United States in meetings with Undersecretary of State Arnold Kanter in New York. Sun told Kanter that Kim Il Sung wanted to establish cooperative relations with Washington and was prepared to accept a long-term U.S. military presence on the Korean Peninsula as a hedge against Chinese or Russian influence.

In 1994, the DPRK negotiated the agreed framework with the Clinton administration, committing to the dismantling of its plutonium reactor in return for much more proliferation-proof light water reactors and a U.S commitment to normalize political and economic relations with Pyongyang. But neither of those commitments was to be achieved immediately, and the U.S. news media and Congress were for the most part hostile to the central trade-off in the agreement. When the North Korea’s social and economic situation deteriorated even more seriously in the second half of the 1990s after being hit by serious floods and famine, the CIA issued reports suggesting the imminent collapse of the regime. So Clinton administration officials believed there was no need to move toward normalization of relations.

rest here

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-dprks-denuclearization-project-south-korean-report-on-summit-discredits-u-s-elites-assumption/5632648

 

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Media Says North Korea's Nukes are Offensive. US Intel Says They're Not

The recent diplomatic breakthrough between the Trump administration and North Korea provides a hopeful opportunity for peaceful resolution to the crisis on the Korean peninsula. Immediately after the announcement, the media went into overdrive to try and undermine the development, worrying more about photographs of Kim Jung-Un than of preventing nuclear war.

This, however, is only the latest iteration in a long history of media reporting which has enabled an aggressive US foreign policy.

While the momentum during the Olympic Games was pushing towards détente, the Trump administration ramped up its “maximum pressure” campaign. Meanwhile, the media constantly reminded its audiences of the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons. A threat not only to the people of the region—but likely even the United States itself.

When faced with such a threat the bellicose posturing of the Trump administration seems perhaps to have been warranted. After all, if the US does not coerce North Korea into denuclearization, what else will protect us?

There is a problem though. This threat is not real. North Korea’s nuclear program—according to official US intelligence assessments—is defensive. Its overall military posture is designed to deter an attack – exactly the kind that Trump has threatened them with.

By falsely portraying North Korea as the aggressor, the press have functioned much in the same way that state-sponsored propaganda would, bolstering an aggressive foreign policy despite the chance that it will descend the world into a possible nuclear war.

The Threat of Deterrence

The most authoritative assessments of US military intelligence have repeatedly concluded that North Korea’s nuclear program is defensive.

The most recent report available, published by the Department of Defense in 2015, concludes that the military capabilities of the North are designed “to deter external attack.” North Korea’s “overarching national security objectives” are to develop nuclear weapons, gain recognition as a nuclear armed state, and thereby establish the “maintenance of a viable deterrent capability.” In terms of “North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs,” the DoD clearly explains that “DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) leaders see these programs as necessary for a credible deterrent capability essential to its survival.”

A similar assessment is given in the 2013 report. The report notes that the objectives of the North Korean regime “have not changed markedly from those pursued by Kim Jong Il,” the country’s previous leader who came to power in the 1990’s. North Korean leaders have seen “these programs, absent normalized relations with the international community, as leading to a credible deterrence capability essential its goals of survival.”

Despite the public availability of these assessments, the mainstream media continues to portray these programs as offensive.

In a New York Times report from February 13, titled “U.S. Opens Door to North Korea Talks, a Victory for South’s President”, the authors uncritically quote Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, as saying that the current leader of North Korea, Kim Jung-Un, “probably sees nuclear ICBMs as leverage to achieve his long-term strategic ambition to end Seoul’s alliance with Washington and to eventually dominate the peninsula.”

While journalists routinely cite such statements from US intelligence officials uncritically, they eschew the most exhaustive assessments produced by the officials’ own agencies. If the DoD report from 2012 had been consulted, it would have been understood that while in the 60s & 70s the North did have “reason to believe its goal of reunification on its own terms was a possibility”, ever since the 1990s “North Korea has largely abandoned unilaterally enforced reunification as a practical goal.”

On the diplomatic side, the Times article explains that “the Trump administration has long resisted” the approach of peaceful negotiation because it does not want to “be drawn into a negotiation like that of the Clinton administration in 1994, which resulted in a deal North Korea later broke.” This last point is stated plainly as fact.

The secretary of defense for President Clinton at that time, who was directly involved in negotiating that deal, says the opposite.

William Perry explains that while the agreement was “imperfectly implemented” it did in fact “effectively halt the regime’s nuclear progress for a time.” Attempts to iron-out a more permanent agreement, which “were tantalizingly close”, only collapsed when the incoming Bush administration cut-off all dialogue with the North and “abandoned Clinton’s diplomatic plan for his own more confrontational model”, thereby losing “a priceless opportunity.”

Importantly, Perry also says that “while [the North Korean leadership] is evil and sometimes reckless,” it is not “crazy or suicidal.” It knows “that if it launches a nuclear attack, the American response would bring death to the leadership and devastation to its country. … The arsenal achieves its goal only if North Korea does not use it.”

By omitting this crucial context, the Times lends undo credibility to the Trump administration’s approach, and further enables the push towards possible nuclear war.

Hyping the Threat

3 More articles from February, The New York Times’, “Seeing Bounty Abroad, Will North Koreans Change Their Homeland?”, the Washington Post’s, “Did Kim Jong Un’s ‘historic’ missile get a boost from old Soviet weapons?”, and the Washington Post’s, “South Korean president says Olympics have lowered tensions with North”, all paint a similar picture.

In the Times piece, the main explanation of North Korea’s behavior is left to a University professor of Korean studies, who echoes the mainstream consensus when he says that North Korea “remains a menacing nuclear state.” No attempt is made to ask what might explain this seemingly erratic behavior, nor what it would feel like to be in North Korea’s shoes, to have the world’s superpower threaten to “totally destroy” your country. It is simply not considered whether such things have anything to do with those “menacing” defensive nukes.

The Washington Post articles add to the paranoia.

In the first, a vivid description is depicted of “the 75-foot-tall colossus… one of two intercontinental ballistic missiles to appear abruptly on North Korean launchpads last year, and the first with sufficient range to strike cities across the continental United States.”

In the second, the authors similarly describe how “the North has made rapid nuclear progress in recent years, and some experts say the country has successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead - the kind of weapon it could use to target the U.S. mainland.” These articles descend to the level of scaremongering because they make no effort to ask why these capabilities are being built. If it was understood that the only way in which these “colossus” missiles would ever threaten “to target the U.S. mainland” is if the Trump administration launches an attack against North Korea first—thus provoking a retaliation—people might have harsher things to say about the administration’s behavior.

History is also turned on its head.

The Post tells its readers that “until recently, relations with North Korea seemed at a crisis point. North Korea was testing nuclear weapons, launching missiles toward Japan, all as President Trump said the United States was ‘locked and loaded’ to respond.” Another Washington Post piece, “The leaders of both Koreas feel like they won gold medals this week”, similarly frames the situation as the US simply responding to North Korean provocations: “After a year of threats, actual and rhetorical, fired from North Korea toward the United States, the sudden burst of inter-Korean diplomacy has turned the focus away from Washington, at least temporarily.”

The most prominent academic scholars say the actual history has been the opposite. Instead, the pattern has been one where a reduction in tensions initiated by the US usually results in a North Korean reciprocation. Conversely, when the US acts aggressively the North tends to respond in kind, usually with some kind of ballistic missile test.

According to one of the most prominent scholars on the subject, Leon V. Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council in New York, “Pyongyang in fact has been playing tit for tat-reciprocating whenever Washington cooperates and retaliating whenever Washington reneges-in an effort to end enmity.”

Indeed, if the Trump-North Korea summit breaks down and the US increases its threats and war-games we can expect to see more missile tests from North Korea in response, and for the media to depict them as aggressive and hostile provocations.

Diplomatic Cover

The way the Washington Post decided to report on the Trump administration’s recent implementation of additional sanctions against North Korea, in “Trump administration unveils sanctions aimed at starving North Korea of resources”, was not to warn against the likelihood that they might undermine the slim opportunities for peaceful negotiations, nor to denounce the negative impact they will have on the wellbeing of the North Korean population—but to help justify the decision.

The sanctions come “as the Trump administration seeks new ways to intensify pressure on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whose increasingly advanced missile and nuclear weapon programs have made the isolated nation the most pressing foreign threat facing the United States.” For this statement to be taken seriously, the reader would have to believe that the North Korean leadership is not only brutal, but downright “crazy or suicidal.”

The article ends with Nikki Haley, the United States’ UN representative, extolling the practice of using economic suffering as diplomatic leverage, while also castigating the North Koreans for refusing to willfully curtail their attempts to defend themselves: “Even though North Korea has yet to end its nuclear and missile programs, we know the sanctions are having a real impact. The regime has less and less money to spend on its ballistic missile tests and less capacity to threaten other countries with those tests.”

The Post takes this account at face-value, offering no criticisms of its accuracy nor of its moral legitimacy. The perception that we have the right to threaten and coerce whoever we want while they do not have the right to defend against this seems to have transcended into the realm of unquestionable and accepted dogma.

The lasting consequence of this kind of reporting is to provide diplomatic cover for the aggressive policies of the US government, helping to justify actions that would likely be condemned if the population had access to the full picture.

It is precisely this type of priming of the narrative that enables pundits to throw scorn upon peaceful negotiations and to favor instead the threatening of aggression and war.

Indeed, it is only with the aid of the mass media that someone like Trump could have gotten away with threatening to “totally destroy” a country for attempting to defend itself, or for people to see military action taken against North Korea – the one thing that does threatens to send nukes into the United States – as necessary to protect the population from nukes.

http://undergroundreports.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/media-says-north-koreas-nukes-are.html?m=1

 

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Has Trump cut a deal Kim Jong-un?

North and South Korea reportedly set to announce official end to war

Ahead of a summit next week between North Korean premier Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-In, lawmakers from the neighboring states were thought to be negotiating the details of a joint statement that could outline an end to the military conflict between the two countries.

Pyongyang and Seoul have technically been at war since the 1950-1953 Korean conflict ended with a truce — and not a peace treaty.


North and South Korea are in talks to announce a permanent end to the officially declared military conflict between the two countries, daily newspaper Munhwa Ilbo reported Tuesday, citing an unnamed South Korean official.

Ahead of a summit next week between North Korean premier Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, lawmakers from the neighboring states were thought to be negotiating the details of a joint statement that could outline an end to the confrontation.

Kim and Moon could also discuss returning the heavily fortified demilitarized zone separating them to its original state, the newspaper said.

Pyongyang and Seoul have technically been at war since the 1950-1953 Korean conflict ended with a truce — and not a peace treaty. Geopolitical tensions have occasionally flared up since the armistice, although to date both countries have managed to avoid another devastating conflict.

A successful summit between the Koreas later this month could help pave the way for a meeting between Kim and President Donald Trump. The U.S. president and North Korean leader are poised to hold talks in late May or June, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/17/north-and-south-korea-reportedly-set-to-announce-official-end-to-war.html

 

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Another update, a lot going on behind the scenes.

Secret Pompeo Mission to North Korea Shows Trump’s Trust in Spies Over Diplomats

PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump’s decision to send his C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, on a secret trip to North Korea to meet its leader, Kim Jong-un, reflects the president’s trust in Mr. Pompeo as well as the central role that spies, rather than diplomats, played in brokering what could be the historic opening between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim.

Mr. Pompeo, nominated by Mr. Trump last month as secretary of state, played advance man for the president, laying the groundwork for a planned meeting between the American and North Korean leaders that has been shrouded in mystery ever since the president unexpectedly agreed to it in early March.

“Meeting went very smoothly and a good relationship was formed,” Mr. Trump said in an early morning tweet before he went golfing with Japan’s visiting prime minister, Shinzo Abe. “Details of Summit are being worked out now. Denuclearization will be a great thing for World, but also for North Korea!”

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Rest here.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/18/world/asia/trump-pompeo-north-korea.html

 

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Momentous events happening on the Korean peninsula, but lets not get ahead of ourselves

Hate to admit but Trumps 'unorthodox' negotiation tactics (or gangsterism) seems to have played a part.

Trumps response.

Embedded Tweet

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More comment.


Mark Fischer

Congratulations to President Trump who achieved peace through American strength. President Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for what he accomplished. President Obama was awarded one for what he didn't. In less than a year and a half, President Trump has achieved in Korea what no other President could over the last 70 years. Had Hillary Clinton been elected we'd have been in WWIII already.

Why did Kim Jong Un agree to peace? Because he went to Russia and China and their leaders told him that when President Trump threatened to destroy North Korea he wasn't kidding. And he wasn't. Emergency food shipments should be sent to North Korea ASAP. Now for the bad news. The mountain over North Korea's nuclear test site has collapsed as President Trump had warned. The possibility of radioactive contamination is a serious threat to the region and the world. A lot of responsibility for this is assignable to China. As a result China may find major areas that support its economy are going to become uninhabitable.

Peter Hitchens take

I am going to keep saying it. North Korea is desperate, and wants to escape from its Cold War prison. It is bankrupt and once again close to famine.

But if we are to settle things peacefully, it is going to cost the West a lot of money. Reunifying Germany worked because we recognised this. We have messed up our relationship with Russia, possibly fatally, because we failed to see the need for a modern equivalent of Marshall Aid.


http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/

 

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Another update

North Korea's Kim promises transparency in nuclear site shutdown as Trump presses for full denuclearization

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has pledged to close the country’s nuclear test site in May in full view of the outside world, Seoul officials said on Sunday, as U.S. President Trump pressed for total denuclearization ahead of his own unprecedented meeting with Kim.

On Friday, Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in vowed “complete denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula in the first inter-Korean summit in more than a decade, but the declaration did not include concrete steps to reach that goal.

North Korea’s state media had said before the summit that Pyongyang would immediately suspend nuclear and missile tests, scrap its nuclear test site and instead pursue economic growth and peace.

Kim told Moon that he would soon invite experts and journalists from the United States and South Korea to “transparently open to the international community” the dismantling of the facilities, the Blue House said.

“Kim said if the United States holds dialogue with the North, they would realise that he’s not the kind of person who would fire a nuclear missile toward the South, over the Pacific or targeting the United States,” Moon’s press secretary Yoon Young-chan told a news briefing.

“If the United States meets often and builds trust with us and promises an end of war and non-aggression, why would we lead a difficult life?” Yoon reported Kim as saying.

Kim said there were two additional, larger tunnels that remain “alive and well” at the Punggye-ri test site beyond the existing one, which experts have said had collapsed after repeated explosions, rendering much of the site useless.

Kim’s promise shows his willingness to “preemptively and actively” respond to inspection efforts to be made as part of the denuclearization process, Yoon said.

To facilitate future cross-border cooperation, Kim pledged to scrap the unique time zone Pyongyang created in 2015. He said the North would move its clocks forward 30 minutes to be in sync with the South, nine hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time.

Kim also reaffirmed that he would not use military force against the South and raised the need for an institutional mechanism to prevent unintended escalations, Yoon said.

NEXT STEPS

Late Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump told Moon in a phone call that he was pleased the leaders of the two Koreas reaffirmed the goal of complete denuclearization during their summit, Seoul officials said on Sunday.

Moon and Trump agreed on the need for an early summit between Trump and Kim, and explored two to three potential locations, the Blue House said.

A senior U.S. official has said Singapore is being considered as a possible venue for the Trump-Kim summit.

“Trump said it was good news for not only the two Koreas but the whole world that they affirmed the goal of realising a nuclear-free Korean peninsula through a complete denuclearization,” South Korea’s presidential Blue House said. “Trump was looking forward to talks with Kim and there would be a very good result.”

Trump, who called the 75-minute chat “a long and very good talk” on Twitter, said his summit with Kim would take place sometime in the next three to four weeks.

“It’s going be a very important meeting, the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” he said at a campaign rally in Washington, Michigan, on Saturday.

The White House said Trump and Moon during the call “emphasized that a peaceful and prosperous future for North Korea is contingent upon its complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization.”

Trump had also informed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that he would urge North Korea to promptly resolve its abductions of Japanese citizens, the White House said.

Most of the specific commitments outlined in the official declaration signed by Kim and Moon focused on inter-Korean relations and did not clear up the question of whether Pyongyang is willing to give up its arsenal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

North Korea’s state media on Saturday released the joint statement as part of a multi-page spread with more than 60 photos from the visit, lauding Friday’s summit as a turning point for the peninsula.

It made rare mentions of the denuclearization discussion, but did not go into detail, instead highlighting the broad themes of peace, prosperity, and Korean unity.

‘AMICABLE ATMOSPHERE’

“At the talks both sides had a candid and open-hearted exchange of views on the matters of mutual concern including the issues of improving the North-South relations, ensuring peace on the Korean Peninsula and the denuclearization of the peninsula,” KCNA said.

It added that the night wrapped up with a dinner that had an “amicable atmosphere overflowing with feelings of blood relatives.”

The declaration earned guarded but optimistic praise from world leaders, including Trump, who said on Friday that only time would tell, but that he did not think Kim was “playing.”

“It’s never gone this far. This enthusiasm for them wanting to make a deal ... We are going to hopefully make a deal.”

Still, Trump said he would maintain pressure on North Korea and “not repeat the mistakes of past administrations.”

In Sydney on Saturday, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull praised Trump’s negotiations on North Korea and said he helped bring the two Korean leaders together.

“I have given him that credit because Donald Trump has taken a very, very strong, hard line on the denuclearization issue and he has been able to bring in the support of the global community and, in particular, China,” Turnbull told a televised news conference, referring to “overwhelming” economic ties between China and North Korea.

“What we’ve now got to do is not relent on the economic pressure until that goal is achieved,” he said.

Australia will send a military aircraft to monitor North Korean vessels suspected of transferring illicit goods in defiance of U.N. sanctions, he said.

Iran, facing a possible U.S. exit from its nuclear deal with world powers, welcomed the inter-Korean summit, but said Washington was not a “qualified” partner in the negotiations.

“Iran sees (the summit) as an important step in the right direction that can contribute to lasting regional and global peace and security,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying by state media.

“The U.S. government is not a credible actor, doesn’t comply with its international obligations and doesn’t qualify to take part in arrangements between countries,” Qasemi added.

An editorial in the official China Daily on Saturday said denuclearization could end hostilities between the two sides and “usher in a new era of development” on the peninsula, but noted Friday’s declaration lacked a plan for achieving the goal.

“The denuclearization of the peninsula, written into the Panmunjom Declaration, is only a prospect with no specific plan. That is because such specifics can be reached only between the US and North Korea, and South Korea has only limited authority to bargain,” it said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ith-iran-may-not-in-fact-be-new-idUSKBN1HZ0QR

 

[anatolian]

I would trust Trump as much I would trust a snake. He might be just laughing insidiously. He thinks he has right to push NK and Iran to close the nuclear sites but who has right to push America to do the same? Why no one talks about the nuclear weapons America has?

 

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Kim Jong Un’s new diplomacy: miracle or a mirage?

The North Korean leader has approached the negotiating table. The question is why?

The cigarette stuck between his fingers has disappeared, his wife is suddenly a more visible first lady, and his media apparatus has shed the habitual insults and display of missiles. In just a few months, Kim Jong Un has engineered the most extraordinary makeover of both his persona and his regime.

The reclusive leader terrified of leaving Pyongyang has shown up in China for a summit with President Xi Jinping. On Friday, he holds his first face-to-face talks with South Korea’s leader, Moon Jae-in. If all goes to plan, in a few weeks he will clinch the big prize: a meeting with Donald Trump.

Most curious is Mr Kim’s sudden shift from belligerence to diplomatic accommodation. In dizzying succession, he has declared himself ready to discuss the de-nuclearisation of his regime; he is no longer opposed to the joint American-South Korean military exercises that have triggered his fury in the past; he has dropped his demands for the withdrawal of the 28,000 US troops stationed in South Korea; and, most recently, pledged to suspend missile testing and close down a nuclear test site.

As Jung Pak, a former US intelligence officer now at the Brookings Institution, puts it, Mr Kim’s attitude to diplomacy seems the same as that to building up a nuclear arsenal: go big and bold. “As it turns out,” she writes, “Kim is not just good at maximum pressure, he’s also pretty good at maximum engagement.”

One could attribute this miraculous transformation to Mr Trump’s negotiating genius, as many of his officials do. By raising the stakes with punishing economic sanctions and a credible readiness to launch a pre-emptive strike on Pyongyang, the US president has forced a capitulation. According to this view, Mr Kim is swapping nuclear weapons as the guarantee of his regime’s survival for an American insurance policy.

There is, however, a more sceptical analysis that makes more sense given the history of the regime and the nature of the US president. Like many governments around the world trying to manage their way through the presidency of Mr Trump, Mr Kim is playing for time. His moves are designed to secure a Trump summit that would amount to a recognition of North Korea’s status as a nuclear power. Mr Kim’s transformation may not be the diplomatic breakthrough it seems, but an illusion — a shrewd diplomatic manoeuvre that turns the greatest threat to his regime into a great opportunity.

On closer examination, Mr Kim has made no significant concession yet. His vision of de-nuclearisation could amount to no more than a moratorium. Moreover, after testing the first ballistic missile North Korea claims can reach the US, Mr Kim said last year that there was no need for further tests — which makes the weekend announcement of no new tests less meaningful.

A long and fraught history of negotiations with North Korea also calls for suspicion. During the six-party talks (involving North Korea, South Korea, the US, Japan, China and Russia) in 2002 to 2005, Pyongyang promised to abandon its nuclear weapons and shut down its programme. The negotiations collapsed over disagreement on verification. Then again in 2012, a US-North Korean deal to freeze work in one nuclear reactor fell apart as soon as it was agreed.

Former negotiators worry that Mr Kim is exploiting Mr Trump’s obsessive need for self-aggrandisement. “All the summit banter has been focused on what North Korea will do, yet there is little scrutiny of what we will give,” says Victor Cha, a former White House adviser who has negotiated with North Korea. Mr Kim’s goal, he says, has always been an agreement that would partially freeze the nuclear programme, not the complete verifiable disarmament the US has sought. A partial deal, he argues, “could be spun by Donald Trump as a victory . . . but it would realise North Korea’s long-term objective, which is formal recognition by the US as a nuke weapons state.”

Once Mr Kim pockets the Trump summit he can haggle for months, if not years, over the details of an agreement, during which time he can master his new statesmanlike image with the threat of a US military strike receding into the distance.

https://www.ft.com/content/c3698b84-4796-11e8-8ae9-4b5ddcca99b3