Trump-Kim summit: president says US 'will be stopping the war games' – live
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Version 22 of 37. Trump was “hoodwinked” at the summit into suspending military exercises and secured very little in return, according to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff who has spent time in North Korea. He writes: The most remarkable aspect of the joint statement was what it didn’t contain. There was nothing about North Korea freezing plutonium and uranium programs, nothing about destroying intercontinental ballistic missiles, nothing about allowing inspectors to return to nuclear sites, nothing about North Korea making a full declaration of its nuclear program, nothing about a timetable, nothing about verification, not even any clear pledge to permanently halt testing of nuclear weapons or long-range missiles. Kim seems to have completely out-negotiated Trump, and it’s scary that Trump doesn’t seem to realize this. For now Trump has much less to show than past negotiators who hammered out deals with North Korea like the 1994 Agreed Framework, which completely froze the country’s plutonium program with a rigorous monitoring system ... For now at least, Trump seems to have been snookered into the same kind of deeply frustrating diplomatic process with North Korea that he has complained about, but that is far better than war. Even so, it’s still bewildering how much Trump gave and how little he got. The cancellation of military exercises will raise questions among our allies, such as Japan, about America’s commitment to those allies. The former Republican presidential hopeful, Senator Marco Rubio, has praised Trump for raising human rights at the summit. But Rubio, a member of the Senate committee on foreign relations, admitted to concerns about how diplomacy with North Korea will turn out. I too have concerns about how all this with #NorthKorea will turn out. But I don’t recall all the “experts” criticizing Obama when he met with a brutal dictator in #Cuba who also oversaw a police state & also killed & jailed his opponents. #DoubleStandard https://t.co/j5x6wPiMGb Presidents meeting with #KJU exposed incredible hypocrisy of many in media. When Obama did these things,he was described as enlightened. When Trump does it he is reckless & foolish. 1 yr ago they attacked Trump for leading us towards war,now attack for being too quick for peace Britain’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, who was recorded last week approvingly imagining Trump leading Brexit negotiations, has welcomed the summit in Singapore. Welcome the news that President Trump and Kim Jong Un have held constructive talks in Singapore. The DPRK’s commitment to complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula is an important first step towards a stable and prosperous future. Here’s a summary of the main points from the summit and the reaction to it: Donald Trump has agreed to suspend military exercises with South Korea in return for a commitment to denuclearisation from Kim Jong-un. Trump conceded that the war games were provocative, inappropriate and very expensive. Both the South Korean government and US forces in the region appear to have been taken by surprise by Trump’s suspension of joint military exercises. Trump hailed the summit as a “very important event in world history”, claiming Kim has given his “unwavering” commitment to dismantle its “very substantial” nuclear arsenal. But he gave few details or specific timeframe saying denuclearisation “takes a long time scientifically”. International observers will be deployed to verify North Korea’s denuclearisation, Trump insisted despite the lack of a commitment to this in the agreement the two leaders signed. Trump said he looked forward to lifting sanctions once “nukes are no longer a factor”. Trump heaped praise on Kim for ushering in a “glorious new era of prosperity for his people”. Trump said he trusted Kim, got on with him, and said he was a “very talented” negotiator, but denied that he saw Kim as his equal. He claimed that a US video of the summit would not be used by Kim for propaganda purposes. Kim will be invited the White House at the appropriate time, Trump said. The president also agreed to travel to Pyongyang at an appropriate time. When they met the two leaders greeted each other with a 12-second handshake and were later recorded exchanging banter. Kim compared the summit to a science fiction movie. When Trump quipped about photographers making the leaders look “handsome and thin”, Kim looked nonplussed. North Korea’s human rights record was discussed at length during the talks, Trump claimed. He said the 100,000 people in North Korean gulags would be among the big winners from the summit. The US and North Korea also agreed to recover the remains of prisoners of war from the conflict between North and South Korea, and the immediate repatriation of those already identified. China welcomed the summit as historic and said the international community could consider lifting sanctions. The fact that the two leaders “can sit together and have equal talks has important and positive meaning, and is creating a new history,” the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, told reporters. He also talked of the need for a peace mechanism for the peninsula. The summit is being seen as better for North Korea than the US. John Everard, the UK’s former ambassador to North Korea, says Trump’s commitment to end war games was “big win” for Kim. He also pointed out that the US would have to play its part in denuclearisation of the peninsula. “I’m not sure just how far Donald Trump has realised what he has signed,” he said. Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said he was willing to engage with North Korea to resolve the cold war abductions of Japanese citizens by North Korean spies. “I’m determined that Japan will have to directly face North Korea and resolve (the abductions) bilaterally,” Abe told reporters. South Korea said the summit would usher in a “new chapter in peace and cooperation”. President Moon Jae-in warned there may be “many difficulties ahead, but we will never go back to the past again”. Downing Street has joined the chorus of cautious welcome to the summit from the international community. Theresa May’s spokesman said North Korea’s commitment to denuclearisation is a signal that Pyongyang has finally heeded the message, according to Reuters. Both the South Korean government and US forces in the region appear to have been taken by surprise by Trump’s declared suspension of joint military exercises. US forces in Korea said they had not received updated guidance on military exercises. “In coordination with our ROK [Republic of Korea] partners, we will continue with our current military posture until we receive updated guidance,” a spokesperson told Reuters The South Korean military issued a statement to NBC News saying: “Regarding President Trump’s comment regarding ending of the combined military drills … we need to find out the exact meaning or intention behind his comments at this point.” Military officials from both countries, including the US defence secretary, James Mattis, had vigorously opposed curtailing joint military exercises, on the grounds that doing so would undermine both the alliance and its deterrent against North Korean aggression. Donald Trump has agreed to suspend military exercises with South Korea in return for a commitment to denuclearisation from Kim Jong-un, the US president announced after his summit with the North Korean leader in Singapore. Trump said the war games were expensive and “very provocative”. Stopping them represents a major concession, something the US has previously rejected as non-negotiable on the grounds that the exercises are a key element of its military alliance with Seoul, and of maintaining a deterrent against North Korea. Trump said that, in return, Kim had agreed in a joint statement to reassert “his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”. Denuclearisation is the longstanding policy of the Pyongyang regime, but it interprets this as being an open-ended, gradual process in which other nuclear powers will also disarm. Missing from the joint statement was the definition, promoted up until now by the Trump administration, of “complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement”. Asked at a press conference why those terms were missing, Trump said: “There was no time. I am here one day.” John Everard, the UK’s former ambassador to North Korea, says Kim Jong-un has emerged as the big winner from the summit, citing Trump’s commitment to end war games. Kim will hail the summit as a “great triumph”, Everard told Sky News. He said: He will claim that he, his genius, his diplomatic nous have brought the president of the United States to the negotiating table. He will say, rightly enough, that he has been the first member of the dynasty to actually sit with a US president and be treated as an equal. This guy is on a roll. Kim Jong-un has scored a major major coup in this summit. All that he needed from it was the photo images, to be seen to be treated as an equal by the President of the United States. The rest was secondary. The declaration suggests he didn’t get that much out of the summit. It was only later, during President Trump’s press conference that we learned almost casually that the US is now going to suspend the joint military exercises with South Korea, to which the North Koreans have so long objected. So another big win by Kim Jong-un. From the US point of view, Everard dismissed the agreement as “rather flimsy”. He said: “All we have is President Trump’s word that Kim Jong-un is serious and a rather flimsy joint statement signed by the two people that doesn’t really tell us anything very much.” He pointed out that the commitment to denuclearisation had already been agreed in April. “Not only was it announced at the inter-Korean summit. It has been standard North Korean doctrine for many years. But notice the phrasing, it talks about ‘denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula’ not just of denuclearisation just of North Korea. In the North Korean mind that means that not just North Korea surrenders its nuclear weapons, but also that the possibility of a nuclear strike against North Korea by other countries, notably the United States, is also removed. So the United States will have to take some fairly stringent measures to limit its ability to hit North Korea. I’m not sure just how far Donald Trump has realised what he has signed.” Trump is reported to have left Singapore earlier than scheduled. Trump has left Singapore It has just gone 6.30pm in Singapore. On Monday the White House said Trump was expected to leave at around 8pm. White House announces Trump and Kim will have a bilateral meeting and working lunch tomorrow after their one-on-one tomorrow. Then Trump will have a press conference and depart Singapore at 8 p.m. No second day of meetings. pic.twitter.com/CwkJO30x86 |