International

Ahead of proposed summit, North Korea rips Trump national security advisor John Bolton

18/05/2018

16 May 2018

North Korea has a message for U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of next month’s summit: Don’t listen to your new hard-line national security adviser, John Bolton.
After announcing early Wednesday that it was pulling out of high-level talks with Seoul because of a new round of U.S.-South Korean military exercises, the North took aim at Bolton and said it might have to reconsider whether to proceed with the summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un because it doubts how seriously Washington actually wants peaceful dialogue.
The moves give the clearest indication yet of North Korea’s mindset heading into the summit, scheduled for June 12 in Singapore.
Read more at https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/16/ahead-of-proposed-summit-north-korea-lobs-barbs-at-national-security-adviser-john-bolton.html

North Korea Livid as Trump Administration Suggests ‘Libya Model’ for Denuclearization

May 16, 2018

There aren’t really examples of nations with substantial nuclear arsenals giving them up as part of a broad negotiated settlement and it working out. North Korea’s denuclearization, then, is very much uncharted territory. The Trump Administration, however, insists on drawing parallels to Libya.
National Security Adviser John Bolton in particular is trying to draw this comparison, even though there are obvious, dramatic differences between the two situations. North Korea is also furious about the Trump Administration’s talk of Libya, and it’s not hard to see why.
Read more at https://news.antiwar.com/2018/05/16/north-korea-livid-as-trump-administration-suggests-libya-model-for-denuclearization/

Trump says ‘Libya model’ not in store for North Korea… provided it makes deal with US

17 May, 2018

President Donald Trump seems to have contradicted his own national security adviser by saying his administration is not considering a “Libyan model” for North Korea. He joked about attacking North Korea should the talks fail.

US National Security Adviser John Bolton suggested earlier that North Korea should strike a deal with the US similar to the one Libya made in 2003, handing over components and notes of its nuclear weapons program in exchange for better relations with the West.
In 2011, however, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was ousted from power and killed by rebels backed by NATO. North Korea pointed this out while condemning Bolton’s statement earlier this week.Speaking to journalists in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump seems to have disavowed Bolton’s statements, saying that his administration is not pursuing a “Libyan model” in the attempt to negotiate the de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
Read more at https://www.rt.com/usa/427041-trump-korea-libyan-model/