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Hard-Liners Push Trump to Ramp up Pressure on North Koreans Over Slow Pace of Denuclearization Talks

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Two months have gone by since the Singapore summit with no serious steps toward denuclearization by North Korea, a reality that has left the Trump administration offering mixed messages on how it plans to proceed in negotiations amid growing concern that Washington is being played by Pyongyang. . .

“We’re not willing to wait for too long,” Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told reporters this week, echoing comments by National Security Adviser John R. Bolton, who complained that Pyongyang has “not taken effective steps” since broadly agreeing to the goal of denuclearization in Singapore.

But Mr. Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Mr. Trump’s point man in the outreach to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, have sounded a much more hopeful tone at times. Mr. Pompeo has advocated for patience and stressed that he firmly believes in Pyongyang’s “commitment to denuclearize.”

“We still have a ways to go to achieve the ultimate outcome,” Mr. Pompeo told reporters last weekend. He added that “there are lots of conversations taking place,” suggesting a breakthrough may be in the works even with signs pointing to the contrary.

The slow pace of U.S.-North Korean talks stands in contrast with increasingly frequent contacts between North Korea and the government of South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a longtime supporter of engagement with Pyongyang on the divided and heavily armed Korean Peninsula. (Read more from “Hard-Liners Push Trump to Ramp up Pressure on North Koreans Over Slow Pace of Denuclearization Talks” HERE)

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Trump Receives ‘Nice Letter’ From Kim Jong Un; Is North Korea Deceiving Us?

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Is the North Korean regime deceiving us once again?

In a tweet Thursday, President Trump announced that he had received a second letter from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. The president praised Kim for releasing the supposed remains of American soldiers who were killed during the Korean War.

While top administration figures continue to tout the progress on North Korea talks, there remains great concerns about the viability of the effort in its entirety.

For many months, the Trump administration has remained true to the goal of securing the full denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. However, North Korea experts across the political spectrum are becoming increasingly concerned that the latest moves from Pyongyang are nothing more than a smokescreen to buy time for their nuclear ambitions.

Earlier this week, news reports surfaced claiming that North Korea is continuing to ramp up production on its latest series of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Satellite images reportedly showed that North Korea is building liquid fueled ICBMs right outside of its capital. A regime apparently committed to denuclearization is making moves that achieve the exact opposite of that goal.

Bruce Klingner, a Heritage Foundation foreign policy scholar who served as the CIA’s Deputy Division Chief for Korea, has sounded the alarm about the current progress (or lack thereof) being made on denuclearization efforts. Earlier in the week, Klingner warned that the Trump administration may be moving in the direction of adopting the failed policies of the Obama administration.

There are also worrying signs that the maximum pressure sanctions regime imposed against Pyongyang is starting to show signs of vulnerability.

The Trump administration, aware of the outside criticism over its strategy, is urging analysts to let the diplomatic talks play out. Over the weekend, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described the current negotiations with the Kim regime as “patient diplomacy.”

“We’re engaged in patient diplomacy,” Pompeo stated. “But we will not let this drag out to no end. I emphasized this position in the productive discussions I had with Vice Chairman Kim Yong Chol. President Trump remains upbeat about the prospects for North Korean denuclearization. Progress is happening.”

However, it’s only a matter of time before more and more people start to ask what progress has actually been made on denuclearization, and whether North Korea is serious about internal reform.

Since its founding, the North Korean regime has developed a reputation for deception and for breaking the rules. The regime has long used stall tactics in order to buy time to advance its nuclear program, while simultaneously finding a way to receive an economic bailout lifeline to prop up its broken Stalinist economy. Unfortunately, it looks like Pyongyang under Kim Jong Un might be up to its old tricks again. (For more from the author of “Trump Receives ‘Nice Letter’ From Kim Jong Un; Is North Korea Deceiving Us?” please click HERE)

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Remains of 55 American Soldiers Killed in North Korea Returned on 65th Anniversary of Armistice

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Fifty-five wooden cases, draped with white and blue United Nations flags, carrying the remains of U.S. soldiers killed during the Korean War arrived Friday in South Korea on the 65th anniversary of the Korean Armistice Agreement, the White House said in a news release.

A solemn honor guard greeted the fallen soldiers at the Osan Air Base outside Seoul, South Korea. U.S. service members methodically carried each small casket — one by one — to their awaiting vehicles. A formal repatriation ceremony will be held Aug. 1, the White House release said.

Earlier, a crew traveled aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft to Wonsan, North Korea, where they collected the soldiers’ remains. . .

“Today’s actions represent a significant first step to recommence the repatriation of remains from North Korea and to resume field operations in North Korea to search for the estimated 5,300 Americans who have not yet returned home,” the White House release said.

“The Remains of American Servicemen will soon be leaving North Korea and heading to the United States!” the president tweeted late Thursday about the return of the remains. “After so many years, this will be a great moment for so many families. Thank you to Kim Jong Un.” (Read more from “Remains of 55 American Soldiers Killed in North Korea Returned on 65th Anniversary of Armistice” HERE)

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Leaked: Trump Sent Plane to Bring Home Otto Warmbier Without Asking North Korea’s Permission

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When President Donald Trump learned of American college student and North Korean prisoner Otto Warmbier’s dire medical condition, he immediately sent a plane to land in Pyongyang and bring home the 22-year-old without asking North Korea’s permission first, says a report from GQ.

In early June of 2017, Trump-appointed U.S. special representative for North Korea policy Joseph Yun learned that Warmbier was unconscious. “I was completely shocked,” said Yun of learning the news. “I came back immediately, and I told Secretary Tillerson … and we determined at the time that we needed to get him and the other prisoners out as soon as possible, and I should contact Pyongyang and say I wanted to come right away.”

“When Trump learned of Otto’s condition, he doubled down on the order for Yun to rush to Pyongyang and bring Otto home,” says the report. “The North Koreans were unilaterally informed that an American plane would soon land in Pyongyang and that United States diplomats and doctors would get off.”

An anonymous State Department official said the president sounded like a “dad” when learning of the news. He was determined to retrieve Warmbier and bring him back to his parents as soon as humanly possible.

“The president was very invested in bringing Otto home,” the official told GQ. “Listening to him deliberate on this, he sounded to me a lot more like a dad.”

(Read more from “Leaked: Trump Sent Plane to Bring Home Otto Warmbier Without Asking North Korea’s Permission” HERE)

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North Korea Said to Be Dismantling Nuclear Site

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By NY Daily News. North Korea appears to have started dismantling key facilities at its main satellite launch site in a step toward fulfilling a commitment made by leader Kim Jong Un at his summit with President Donald Trump in June.

While Pyongyang could be trying to build trust with Washington as they engage in talks to resolve the nuclear standoff, analysts say dismantling a few facilities at the site alone wouldn’t realistically reduce North Korea’s military capability or represent a material step toward denuclearization. And they expressed concern the work is being done without verification.

North Korea-focused 38 North website said commercial satellite images between July 20 and 22 indicate the North began dismantling key facilities at the Sohae launch site. The facilities being razed or disassembled include a rocket engine test stand used to develop liquid-fuel engines for ballistic missiles and space-launch vehicles and a rail-mounted processing building where space launch vehicles were assembled before being moved to the launch pad, according to the report. . .

An official from South Korea’s presidential office on Tuesday said Seoul has also been detecting dismantlement activities at the Sohae launch site but did not specify what the North was supposedly taking apart. (Read more from “North Korea Said to Be Dismantling Nuclear Site” HERE)

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North Korea: Satellite Images Show Dismantling of Missile Test Facilities

By The Guardian. Satellite images indicate North Korea has begun dismantling key facilities at a site used to develop engines for ballistic missiles, in a first step toward fulfilling a pledge made to US President Donald Trump at a June summit, reports a Washington-based think tank.

The images from 20 July showed work at the Sohae satellite launching station to dismantle a building used to assemble space-launch vehicles and a nearby rocket engine test stand used to develop liquid-fuel engines for ballistic missiles and space-launch vehicles, the 38 North think tank said. . .

Trump told a news conference after his 12 June summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that Kim had promised that a major missile engine testing site would be destroyed very soon.

Trump did not identify the site, but a US official subsequently told Reuters that it was Sohae. (Read more from “North Korea: Satellite Images Show Dismantling of Missile Test Facilities” HERE)

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President Trump Has Released a Letter From Kim Jong Un, Here’s What It Says

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By Townhall. President Trump released a letter written by North Korea Dictator Kim Jong Un Thursday afternoon and said nuclear negotiations with the regime are going well. . .

The President’s release of the letter comes shortly after North Korean officials failed to show up to a meeting with U.S. leadership. The meeting was about returning the remains of American soldiers from the Korean War.

North Korean officials did not turn up to a Thursday meeting with the U.S. military about repatriating the remains of American war dead, according to a U.S. official with knowledge of the situation.

In the meeting at the Korean Peninsula’s demilitarized zone, the two sides had been expected to discuss the return of U.S. troops’ remains from the 1950-53 Korean War — an arrangement that the State Department had announced after Secretary Michael R. Pompeo’s visit to Pyongyang last weekend.

(Read more from “President Trump Has Released a Letter From Kim Jong Un, Here’s What It Says” HERE)

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The U.S. Is Trying to Nail Down Terms With Pyongyang, While ‘South Koreans Aren’t Wasting Time’

By CNBC. One month since the U.S-North Korea summit, skepticism about Kim Jong Un’s commitment to denuclearization still hangs over Washington. But in South Korea, the mood is overwhelmingly optimistic as President Moon Jae-in’s government pushes for improved ties with its nuclear-armed neighbor.

From sports diplomacy to corporate ventures, Seoul is pulling out all the stops to re-engage Pyongyang as it builds on the positive momentum sparked by April’s inter-Korean summit.

Major conglomerates such as Lotte, Hyundai, Hyosung and KT have announced task forces dedicated to exploring inter-Korean ventures. Meanwhile, a group of South Korean businessmen who operated factories at the defunct Kaesong joint industrial complex in North Korea are seeking government approval to visit in hopes of resuming operations.

Pyongyang and Seoul also agreed last month to jointly improve North Korea’s railways and potentially connect them with the South’s. Moreover, the two nations pledged to form joint sports teams for the upcoming Asian Games and recently played a series of friendly basketball matches with one another.

Unlike President Donald Trump’s administration, “South Koreans aren’t wasting time defining denuclearization,” Jean Lee, Korea program director at research group The Wilson Center, wrote in a note this week. “They are pushing ahead with plans for reconciliation with North Korea — with or without the United States.” (Read more from “The U.S. Is Trying to Nail Down Terms With Pyongyang, While ‘South Koreans Aren’t Wasting Time'” HERE)

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Kim Jong Un Orders Another Military Officer Executed by Firing Squad. Here’s Why

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By The Blaze. North Korea has reportedly carried out the public execution of a high-ranking military official by firing squad, at the orders of leader Kim Jong Un.

Lieutenant General Hyon Ju-song was found guilty of profiting the enemy, abusing authority, and engaging in anti-Party acts after being accused of distributing extra rations of food and fuel to his troops. . .

Korean online newspaper Daily NK reported the incident, saying that Hyon had been on the fast track to success prior to his execution. He had risen through the ranks after starting out as an enlisted soldier, to eventually holding the official position of director of the inspection division of the Ministry of People’s Armed Forces General Rear Services Bureau.

But Daily NK’s source said that, “While checking the oil supplies for the Sohae Satellite Launching Station during the comprehensive inspections of wartime supplies on April 10, Hyon stated, ‘We no longer have to suffer and tighten our belts to make rockets or nuclear weapons.’ This was seen as an abuse of authority and a treasonous statement that opposed the Party’s military-first policy.

“[Hyon] gave out instructions to send out 1 ton of fuel, 580 kg of rice, and 750 kg of corn to military officers at the Launching Station and their families. This was considered an anti-Party act violating the Ten Principles for the Establishment of the Party’s One Ideology System.” (Read more from “Kim Jong Un Orders Another Military Officer Executed by Firing Squad. Here’s Why” HERE)

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North Korea Upgrades Nuclear Facility Despite Trump-Kim Summit, Satellite Images Show

By USA Today. North Korea is upgrading a major nuclear research facility despite President Donald Trump’s claim that leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to disarm, according to new satellite images and a research paper published by a North Korea monitoring group.

Experts at 38 North, a website affiliated with the Stimson Center in Washington D.C. devoted to analysis of North Korea, concluded the images show that “improvements to the infrastructure at North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center are continuing at a rapid pace.”

The satellite images are from June 21.

That’s less than two weeks after Trump boasted of a diplomatic breakthrough with Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons program after decades of hostility.

Trump and Kim signed a joint declaration at a summit in Singapore on June 12 and pledged to work toward peace and to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. “We’re ready to write a new chapter between our nations,” Trump said at a news conference following the summit. He called his meeting with Kim “honest, direct and productive.” (Read more from “North Korea Upgrades Nuclear Facility Despite Trump-Kim Summit, Satellite Images Show” HERE)

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A Recent Poll Reveals That Liberals Want NK Deal to Fail, Just so Trump Can’t Get Credit

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Irrational hatred for President Donald Trump runs deep among the left. So deep, in fact, that a majority of unfunny comedian Michelle Wolf’s audience hopes the president fails to achieve peace with North Korea, even if that means all of America must forever contend with the perpetual risk of a nuclear war erupting.

This astonishing discovery was made during an episode of Wolf’s equally unfunny Netflix special, “The Break with Michelle Wolf.” . . .

“Are you sort of hoping we don’t get peace with North Korea so you wouldn’t have to give Trump credit?” the obnoxious comedian, who acquired nationwide notoriety in April after she insulted White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders during the White House Correspondents Dinner, asked her audience.

An astonishing 71 percent of her audience chose “yes.” Let that sink in …

While it remains unclear when exactly the episode was recorded, the clip above first appeared on social media around June 4, meaning the poll was taken before the president met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un but after their historic summit had been scheduled. (Read more from “A Recent Poll Reveals That Liberals Want NK Deal to Fail, Just so Trump Can’t Get Credit” HERE)

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Trump Says He’s Not Calling Kim out on Human Rights – This Is Why

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On Friday, President Trump was asked by the press about his obvious unwillingness to call out North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un on his brutal human rights violations. His answer: he doesn’t want your children to die in a nuclear hellstorm. Because apparently, that’s the binary choice: either massage a tinpot dictator, or he’ll fire nuclear weapons at us. Never mind that presidents have excoriated the Kim family’s human rights record for decades; never mind that President Trump himself spoke in heartbreaking terms about North Korea’s human rights violations in January, at the State of the Union Address, where he touted a North Korean escapee who had been crippled by the juche state. No, if Trump doesn’t flatter Kim now, your kids will end up like the kids at the playground in the dream sequence from Terminator 2.

(Read more from “Trump Says He’s Not Calling Kim out on Human Rights – This Is Why” HERE)

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President Trump Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by Norwegian Lawmakers

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Two Norwegian lawmakers have nominated President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and reaching an agreement to work toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Christian Tybring-Gjedde and Per-Willy Amundsen are members of Norway’s governing Progress Party and nominated the U.S. president the day after the Singapore summit, according to the Norwegian government-owned broadcaster NRK.

“What’s going on now is historic,” Per-Willy told NRK, according to Bloomberg. “A process is underway to ensure world peace in the future. It’s a fragile process, but we must of course do what we can to help this process bring good results.”

The lawmakers also told Norwegian news agency NTB that Trump “had taken a huge and important step in the direction of the disarmament, peace and reconciliation between North and South Korea,” The Associated Press reported.

Since the deadline for nominations for this year’s prize has already passed, Trump’s nomination will make him eligible for next year.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee — a committee of five people chosen by the Norwegian parliament who award the Nobel Peace Prize — receives hundreds of nominations to consider for the prize every year. This year, a record 330 people were nominated, according to Bloomberg.

This is not the first time that Trump has been nominated for the prize as a result of his efforts to bring peace to the Korean peninsula.

In April, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said that Trump deserves to win the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in bringing about the denuclearization talks on the Korean peninsula and the possibility of an official end to decades-long war between North and South.

“President Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize,” Moon is said to have told a meeting of senior secretaries, according to a Korean official who briefed the media. “What we need is only peace.”

Following the South Korean president’s informal nomination, a group of 18 Republican members of Congress signed their names to a letter formally nominating Trump for the prize in May.

The letter was sent by Rep. Luke Messer of Indiana to the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Wednesday and signed on to by 17 other House GOP members, including Reps. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Diane Black and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, and Steve King of Iowa to name some.

In the letter, the lawmakers commend Trump for working “tirelessly to apply maximum pressure on North Korea to end its illicit weapons program and bring peace to the region.”

“His Administration successfully united the international community, including China, to impose one of the most international sanctions regimes in history,” which “have been largely credited for bringing North Korea to the negotiating table,” they said.

After roughly five hours of talks between Trump and Kim in Singapore on Tuesday, the two leaders emerged from the summit with an agreement that includes the “complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.”

“President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK and Chairman Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” read the preamble of the document, according to the New York Post.

The two countries also agreed to work toward “peace and prosperity,” a “stable peace” on the peninsula, to work “toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” and to commit to “recovering POW/MIA remains including the immediate reparations of those already identified.”

Trump acknowledged that denuclearization won’t happen overnight, but said, “Once you start the process it means it’s pretty much over.” (For more from the author of “President Trump Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by Norwegian Lawmakers” please click HERE)

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