Just because North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un met with President Donald Trump, shook hands, and signed a vague agreement doesn’t mean the sanctions against the evil regime will disappear right away. From Reuters:
“President Trump has been incredibly clear about the sequencing of denuclearization and relief from the sanctions,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters after meeting South Korea’s president and Japan’s foreign minister in Seoul.“We are going to get complete denuclearization; only then will there be relief from the sanctions,” he said.
The statement comes after North Korean state media KCNA reported “that Trump had discussed lifting sanctions against Pyonyang during his talks with Kim in Singapore.”
Pompeo also said that Trump reiterated to Kim and then at the press conference with the dictator that sanctions will only be revoked after complete denuclearization is accomplished. Plus, the document the two men signed did not mention sanctions at all.
But it’s nothing new for the hermit kingdom’s media to exaggerate and feed into Kim’s need to be portrayed as godlike. The Wall Street Journal provided more details on the KCNA report:
The North Korean report quoted Mr. Trump as crediting Mr. Kim’s “proactive peace-loving measures” for having created the atmosphere of peace this year—not the president’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Pyongyang—and said the two leaders accepted each other’s invitations to visit their respective countries.The report also suggested that Mr. Trump had adopted the North’s preferred phased approach toward any denuclearization process, saying the two men had agreed to the “principle of step-by-step and simultaneous action.”The North Korean report emphasized the equal standing of the two countries, describing the positioning of the two countries’ flags. It also said that the two men were able to enjoy “deepening friendly feelings” during a short stroll together.
People have criticized the ambiguous agreement between the two men, but come on. It’s going to take a long time to talk through different options and steps let alone agree on denuclearization. Pompeo reminded everyone of this when he said it will “be a process, not an easy one.”
Despite that, South Korean President Moon Jae-In found hope through the U.S.-North Korea summit:
However, South Korean President Moon Jae-In said the world, through the summit, had escaped the threat of war, echoing Trump’s upbeat assessment of his meeting with Kim.”What’s most important was that the people of the world, including those in the United States, Japan and Koreans, have all been able to escape the threat of war, nuclear weapons and missiles,” Moon told Pompeo.
Moon said that his country “would be flexible when it comes to military pressure on North Korea if it is sincere about denuclearization.”
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