President Donald Trump said on Tuesday there is no hurry to denuclearise North Korea under his accord with Kim Jong-un — a shift in tone from when the US leader said the process would start very soon.
Last month, Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held historic talks and pledged to denuclearise the Korean peninsula. The accord did not have a timetable for the process or plan to carry it out. Since the meeting between Trump and Kim on June 12, there has been little-reported progress towards denuclearisation.
“Discussions are ongoing and they’re going very, very well,” Trump told reporters. “We have no time limit. We have no speed limit.” Trump said he discussed North Korea with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday at their summit in Helsinki.
Last week, North Korea accused the US of making “gangster-like” demands for the process, and branded the US attitude at high-level talks as “extremely troubling”.
The White House has hailed the summit between Kim and Trump in Singapore as a major breakthrough toward disarming the isolated, nuclear-armed North in exchange for easing of sanctions and other help with economic development.
But since then, Trump has suggested that dismantling North Korea’s nuclear arsenal could be some way off. Speaking at a press conference in the UK last week, the US President said negotiations with Pyongyang would be “probably a longer process than anybody would like”.
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
