Tag Archives: North Korea

North Korea is dismantling its nuclear site, but is it abandoning its arsenal or hiding evidence?

A satellite photo of the Punggye-Ri nuclear test site in North Korea May 14, 2018. Planet Labs Inc/Handout via REUTERS

By Josh Smith

SEOUL (Reuters) – Satellite imagery shows North Korea dismantling facilities at its nuclear test site, but experts say the images can’t reveal whether it is the first step toward full denuclearization, or an attempt to cloak nuclear capabilities from outside observers.

North Korea’s intentions were thrown further into doubt on Wednesday, when it abruptly announced it may “reconsider” meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in June if the United States continues to insist on unilateral denuclearization.

Commercial satellite imagery – including photos taken by Planet Labs as recently as May 14 – show North Korea removing some structures around its nuclear test site at Punggye-ri, experts say.

“So far it looks like the surface-level support structures are being dismantled,” said Scott LaFoy, an open source imagery analyst. “This would be consistent with the site being closed, as you need engineers and working teams on-site to prepare and maintain the site.”

Among the facilities that appear to have been razed are an engineering office, as well as buildings housing the air compressor used to pump air into the tunnels where the bombs were detonated, said non-proliferation expert Frank Pabian.

“This is entirely in keeping with the official North Korean news report that ‘technical measures’ associated with the shutdown were underway,” Pabian said.

North Korea has said it plans to use explosives to collapse the tunnels; “completely” block up the tunnel entrances; and remove observation facilities, research institutes and guard structures.

A limited number of foreign media have been invited to view the ceremonial closure of the site, but so far no international inspectors, leading some experts to suspect that North Korea is seeking to hide details of its nuclear capabilities.

“North Korea might seem like they’re being generous in holding this event, but this is the actual testing ground we’re talking about here – The smoking gun,” said Suh Kune-yull, professor of nuclear energy system engineering at Seoul National University. “It seems like they’re trying to erase any evidence of the nuclear capabilities they have.”

“SOME RED FLAGS”

In a statement on Wednesday, North Korea’s first vice minister of foreign affairs Kim Kye Gwan sharply criticized American officials – especially national security adviser John Bolton – for suggesting that Libya could be a template for denuclearizing North Korea.

Bolton has proposed Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un make a deal similar to the one that led to components of Libya’s nuclear program being shipped to the United States in 2004.

In 2011, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was captured and killed by rebel forces backed by a NATO air campaign.

While the technical aspects of a North Korea deal could mirror some aspects of the Libya effort, Pyongyang has a much more advanced weapons program and Gaddafi’s fate is not encouraging, Andreas Persbo, the executive director of VERTIC, a London think tank that focuses on disarmament verification and implementation, said in a recent interview.

“Libya is a horrible example to make out of that perspective because of course the North Koreans have their own teams advising Kim Jong Un on what this meant, and they will highlight the fact that this is not a good solution for North Korea,” he said.

North Korea appears instead to be proposing a longer-term general commitment to “denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” which could take years even under the best circumstances, experts say.

LaFoy said North Korea’s actions so far are “not necessarily nefarious,” but that it does raise some “red flags” about complete permanent denuclearization.

“That imagery tells us the site appears to be in the process of decommissioning,” he said. “But we can’t yet tell if it is going to be closed for years or something that can ultimately be reversed in a few weeks or months.”

(GRAPHIC: Nuclear North Korea – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Kql12i)

(Additional reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL and Malcolm Foster in TOKYO. Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

North Korea says may reconsider summit with Trump, suspends talks with South

FILE PHOTO - South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attend a banquet on the Peace House at the truce village of Panmunjom inside the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, South Korea, April 27, 2018. Korea Summit Press Pool/Pool via Reuters

By Christine Kim and Josh Smith

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea threw next month’s summit between Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump into doubt on Wednesday, threatening weeks of diplomatic progress by saying it may reconsider if Washington insists it unilaterally gives up its nuclear weapons.

The North’s official KCNA news agency said earlier Pyongyang had called off high-level talks with Seoul, which had been due on Wednesday, in the first sign of trouble after months of warming ties.

Citing first vice minister of foreign affairs Kim Kye Gwan, KCNA later said the fate of the unprecedented U.S.-North Korea summit, as well as bilateral relations, “would be clear” if the United States spoke of a “Libya-style” denuclearisation for the North.

“If the U.S. is trying to drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment, we will no longer be interested in such dialogue and cannot but reconsider our proceeding to the DPRK-U.S. summit,” Kim Kye Gwan said, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The United States was still hopeful about the summit, scheduled for Singapore on June 12, but also prepared for a tough negotiation process, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.

“We’re still hopeful that the meeting will take place and we’ll continue down that path, but at the same time we’ve been prepared that these could be tough negotiations,” Sanders said in an interview with Fox News.

“The president is ready if the meeting takes place. If it doesn’t, we’ll continue the maximum pressure campaign that’s been ongoing.”

Vice Minister Kim specifically criticized U.S. national security adviser John Bolton, who has called for North Korea to quickly give up its nuclear arsenal in a deal that mirrors Libya’s abandonment of its weapons of mass destruction.

North Korea clashed with Bolton when he worked under the Bush administration, calling him “human scum” and a “bloodsucker”.

“We shed light on the quality of Bolton already in the past, and we do not hide our feeling of repugnance towards him,” Kim said.

The North Korean statement, as well its cancellation of the talks with the South due to U.S.-South Korean military exercises, mark a dramatic reversal in tone from recent months when both sides embraced efforts to negotiate.

North Korea had announced it would publicly shut its nuclear test site next week.

‘THREATS AND BLACKMAIL’

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday the United States would agree to lift sanctions on North Korea if it agreed to completely dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

However, Kim Kye Gwan’s statement appeared to reject that, saying North Korea would never give up its nuclear program in exchange for trade with the United States.

“We have already stated our intention for denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and made clear on several occasions that precondition for denuclearisation is to put an end to anti-DPRK hostile policy and nuclear threats and blackmail of the United States,” Kim said.

North Korea has always defended its nuclear and missile programs as a necessary deterrent against perceived aggression by the United States, which keeps 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korea has long said it is open to eventually giving up its nuclear arsenal if the United States withdraws its troops from South Korea and ends its “nuclear umbrella” security alliance with Seoul, though South Korean officials have said the North may be willing to compromise.

The United States has insisted on complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and the facilities needed to build the weapons as soon as possible.

Asian stock markets dipped after North Korea called off the talks with the South. Cancellation of the Singapore summit could see tension flare again even as investors worry about China-U.S. trade friction.

South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-hwa spoke to Pompeo by telephone and discussed North Korea’s postponement of the talks with the South, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Pompeo told Kang Washington would continue to make preparations for the U.S-North Korea summit, bearing in mind the recent action by North Korea, it said.

Kim Kye Gwan’s statement came hours after North Korea pulled out of talks with the South after denouncing the U.S.-South Korean “Max Thunder” air combat drills, which it said involved U.S. stealth fighters, B-52 bombers and “nuclear assets”, as a provocation.

American stealth F-22 fighters were spotted in South Korea earlier in May, but a spokesman for the U.S. military command in South Korea said no B-52s were scheduled to take part in the drills.

A South Korean defense ministry official said the drills would go on as planned and were not aimed at any third party.

‘MISERABLE FATE’

Cancellation of the summit, the first meeting between a serving U.S. president and a North Korean leader, would deal a major blow to what would be the biggest diplomatic achievement of Trump’s presidency.

Trump has raised expectations for success even as many analysts have been skeptical about the chances of bridging the gap due to questions about North Korea’s willingness to give up a nuclear arsenal that it says can hit the United States.

Kim Kye Gwan derided as “absurd” Bolton’s suggestion that discussions with North Korea should be similar to those that led to components of Libya’s nuclear program being shipped to the United States in 2004.

“(The) world knows too well that our country is neither Libya nor Iraq which have met miserable fate,” Kim said.

He said North Korea was a nuclear weapon state while Libya had been at the initial stage of nuclear development.

A U.S. government expert on North Korea said Kim Jong Un may also be trying to gauge whether Trump was willing to walk away from the meeting.

Joshua Pollack, of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, said Pyongyang appeared irritated by the U.S. administration’s vow to maintain sanctions in spite of North Korean concessions.

“The North Koreans want a change in tone from the U.S., and at least so far, they’re not hearing one,” he said.

The doubt thrown over the summit comes a week after Trump abandoned the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, under which Tehran curbed its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of most international sanctions.

China said on Wednesday all parties “should show goodwill and avoid mutual provocation” to create a conducive atmosphere for denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula.

The North-South talks had been due to focus on plans to implement a declaration that emerged from an inter-Korea summit last month, including promises to formally end the Korean War and pursue “complete denuclearisation”.

South Korea described the North’s decision as “regrettable”.

(Reporting by Josh Smith and Christine Kim in SEOUL, Tim Kelly in TOKYO, Philip Wen and Christian Shepherd in BEIJING, and David Brunnstrom, Phillip Stewart, Tim Ahmann, Matt Spetalnick and Lesley Wroughton, Doina Chiacu in WASHINGTON; Editing by Paul Tait and Robert Birsel)

Safety, verification questions hang over North Korea’s plan to close nuclear site

FILE PHOTO: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un provides guidance with Ri Hong Sop (3rd L) and Hong Sung Mu (L) on a nuclear weapons program in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang September 3, 2017. KCNA via REUTERS/File Photo

By Josh Smith and David Brunnstrom

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Shutting down North Korea’s nuclear test site is trickier than it might seem.

A botched tunnel collapse could spread radioactive debris. Nuclear material might be buried, but accessible enough to be dug up and reused in a weapon. And even if all the testing tunnels are destroyed, North Korean engineers could simply dig a new one if they want to conduct another nuclear test.

Disarmament experts have raised many such scenarios after North Korea said over the weekend that it would use explosives to collapse the tunnels of its Punggye-ri nuclear test site next week.

Pyongyang has publicly invited international media to witness the destruction, but not technical inspectors, leaving disarmament experts and nuclear scientists wondering how effective the plan is – and whether it will be safe.

Recent reports indicate that some areas of the Punggye-ri test site have become unstable after the latest and largest nuclear test in September.

More explosions would be unnecessarily risky, but there are steps North Korea could take to make the shutdown more credible and safe, said Suh Kune-yull, professor of nuclear energy systems engineering at Seoul National University.

“Blowing up isn’t the most ideal way,” Suh said. “It might be less dramatic than an explosion, but filling the tunnel up with concrete, or sand or gravel would be best.”

There is still a considerable amount of radiation being detected at one of the tunnel complexes where most of North Korea’s nuclear tests have taken place, including the latest test of what North Korea said was a fusion bomb, he said.

But underground nuclear test tunnels and shafts are typically designed to be sealed by the nuclear bomb’s blast wave before radioactive material can escape. Some experts noted that North Korea over the course of its six nuclear tests probably learned how to prevent radiation leaks.

“If it’s done well, there is no risk of radiation being released. But the question is, are these tunnels being sealed in a way that they couldn’t again be used?” said Jon Wolfsthal, the director of the Nuclear Crisis Group and a former senior arms control official at the U.S. National Security Council.

“The only risk I see is that we will take the destruction of a couple of tunnels as a physical barrier to the resumption of testing in the future.”

MESSY HISTORY

North Korea’s shutting down its test site could be an effort to mirror other nuclear powers that have ended testing, but hung onto their weapons, analysts say.

Suh said beyond closing tunnels and knocking down buildings, the entire Punggye-ri site will need to be secured to prevent the North Koreans or profiteers from digging up nuclear material that could be reused in weapons or sold on the black market.

Previous efforts to close underground nuclear test sites have sometimes been messy, drawn-out affairs, he said.

In 1999, the United States provided $800,000 to pay for a blast equivalent to 100 tons of dynamite to collapse a tunnel at a former Soviet test site in Kazakhstan.

Known as “Plutonium Mountain,” the Soviet Union’s Semipalatinsk Test Site covered an area roughly the size of Belgium and was the scene of 456 nuclear tests during the Cold War, including at least 340 underground blasts.

Cleaning up and securing that site took 17 years and $150 million, according to a report by Harvard’s Belfer Centre.

France, which performed 13 underground nuclear tests in the Sahara Desert in the 1960s, says it “shut down and dismantled its nuclear test facilities,” and a 2005 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded that most of the sites in Algeria show “little residual radioactive material.”

But local people and Algeria’s government said the tests – including the 1962 “Beryl Incident” when radioactive rock and dust escaped from an underground nuclear blast – left a legacy of environmental devastation and health problems that last today.

China, Pakistan, India are also known to have conducted underground nuclear tests. South Africa – which dismantled its entire nascent nuclear weapons program in 1989 – closed down its underground shafts without conducting a test.

The United States, meanwhile, detonated at least 828 nuclear bombs underground at its Nevada Test Site.

The site remains open, although no U.S. nuclear tests have been carried out since 1992.

‘PERMANENT AND IRREVERSIBLE’

Nuclear experts say the shutdown plan is at least an encouraging political gesture ahead of talks with the United States in June.

But they caution it is not necessarily the first step of the “complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement” of the nuclear program the United States has sought.

The U.S. State Department did not give a specific response when asked whether the United States had asked to send observers to the dismantling of the site or for international monitors to be present.

A spokesman said: “A permanent and irreversible closure that can be inspected and fully accounted for is a key step in the denuclearization of (North Korea). We look forward to learning additional details.”

China – which borders North Korea only about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Punggye-ri – has not publicly said whether it would help dismantle the site or monitor the process.

“To my understanding, the North Korean side has not raised this kind of request to the Chinese side,” a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the state-backed Global Times ran an editorial saying that abandoning the testing site “would bring huge benefits to the region.”

Many doubt North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will ever fully relinquish his expensive and treasured nuclear weapons, but even if he curtails his program, analysts warn it will be a long process.

“I am concerned that Kim Jong Un may take unilateral actions that are hard to dispute – like closing the test site – and implement them without any observation,” said Sharon Squassoni, a research professor at the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy in Washington. “This would set up a complicated situation wherein North Korea was taking actions that we would normally applaud, but without any verification.”

(Additional reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL, Matt Spetalnick in WASHINGTON, and Christian Shepherd in BEIJING; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Gerry Doyle)

Closing North Korea nuclear test site an important step, U.N. chief says

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres arrives for a news conference in Vienna, Austria, May 14, 2018. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

VIENNA (Reuters) – Irreversibly closing North Korea’s nuclear test site is an important step that could pave the way for progress at talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday.

North Korea gave details on Saturday on the planned dismantling of the Punggye-ri site where it is believed to have carried out all six of its nuclear tests.

The official Korean Central New Agency said it would take place between May 23 and 25 and involve collapsing all the site’s tunnels with explosions, blocking its entrances, and removing all observation facilities, research buildings and security posts.

“I would like to welcome that and to say that the irreversible closure of the site will be an important confidence-building measure that will contribute to further efforts towards sustainable peace and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” Guterres said in a statement after meeting Austria’s chancellor in Vienna.

“And I look forward to this positive momentum being consolidated at the summit between the leaders of the United States and North Korea,” he said in the remarks to reporters after his meeting with Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

Trump and Kim are due to hold talks in Singapore on June 12, the first-ever meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.

After North Korea’s announcement on Saturday, Trump said on Twitter: “Thank you, a very smart and gracious gesture!”

(Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Trump, Kim summit in Singapore presents logistical challenges for North Korea

Office workers walk to the train station during evening rush hour in the financial district of Singapore March 9, 2015. REUTERS/Edgar Su/Files

By Jack Kim and Jamie Freed

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s trip to Singapore for talks with U.S. President Donald Trump poses logistical challenges that are likely to include using Soviet-era aircraft to carry him and his limousine, as well as dozens of security and other support staff.

The choice of Singapore as the site of the first-ever meeting of a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader was as much because it was within reasonable flight time and distance from Pyongyang as because of the island state’s political neutrality, a South Korean presidential official told reporters.

Since becoming North Korea’s leader in 2011, Kim has only taken one known overseas trip by air – and that was earlier this week to Dalian in China to hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He flew in his personal Ilyushin-62M jet accompanied by a cargo plane that people with knowledge of North Korean affairs say is believed to have carried his limousine.

“It looks very much like the trip to Dalian was a dry run,” said Andray Abrahamian, a research fellow at Pacific Forum CSIS and formerly with Choson Exchange, a Singapore-based group that trains North Koreans in business skills.

At 4,700 km from Pyongyang’s Sunan airport, Singapore is easily in the range of the Il-62M aircraft. The Soviet-era narrow-body jet with four engines was first introduced in the 1970s and has a maximum range of 10,000 km.

But the Ilyushin-76 cargo plane cannot fly more than 3,000 km without refueling if carrying a full load. It will therefore have to stop off at a friendly location like Vietnam’s capital on the way to Singapore or fly with a reduced load.

The Il-76, originally designed for moving heavy machinery to remote parts of the Soviet Union, is big enough to fit a school bus or two shipping containers inside it, according to passenger and cargo flight operator Antarctic Logistics & Expeditions.

But the cargo plane has had some safety issues. In the latest incident last month, a crash killed 257 people on board after takeoff from an Algiers air base.

Unlike his father Kim Jong Il, who died in 2011 and who traveled by armored train on his rare trips abroad because he feared being shot down, according to a North Korean defector familiar with his security details, the younger leader is not known to be averse to flying.

But air travel of this distance does pose a significantly greater challenge in transporting communication and security equipment and personnel needed to back up a summit meeting.

 

SUITE FIT FOR A LEADER

Lee Yun-keok, a defector who had worked for the North’s government and now heads the North Korea Strategic Information Service Center in Seoul, said the trip will involve dozens of security personnel and equipment including possibly a personal toilet for the leader.

It will also mean burning a large quantity of jet fuel, a refined oil product sharply limited by U.N. sanctions targeting North Korea’ imports. Kim’s two planes will need around 50 metric tons of jet fuel per aircraft for the flight from Pyongyang to Singapore.

China, the main source of fuel for the North, exported just 3 tons of jet fuel in March and made no official exports the two previous months, according to Chinese customs data.

But the North’s planes can pick up extra fuel when they fly to China and Russia for commercial operations, and international security experts believe the North may have been stockpiling the fuel which it has also used for its missile program.

“The United States had preferred Geneva,” the South Korean presidential official told reporters, requesting anonymity to discuss the arrangements for the summit meeting.

“But Singapore was selected as it was the most realistically viable destination Kim Jong Un could probably travel when considering the travel time and flight distance.”

The two sides initially considered meeting in the Panmunjom truce village straddling the Korean military border, the scene of the third inter-Korea summit attended by Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in last month, the official said. The official said the South did not know the reason why Panmunjom was dropped.

There was no confirmation on the specific location for the meeting between Kim and Trump although there are a number of sites in Singapore that can guarantee security protection, including hotels that have experience hosting high-security events, Singapore media and a Singapore government official said.

The meeting is scheduled for one day on June 12, but if either or both of the leaders decide to stay overnight, there is only one hotel room in all of the city that meets “security protocol” for the U.S. president, according to a source with knowledge of previous U.S. presidential visits.

That is the 348-square meter Shangri-la Suite in the Valley Wing of the hotel of the same name, at a current rate of S$10,000 ($7,500) a night for June 12.

($1 = 1.3348 Singapore dollars)

(Additional reporting by Dewey Sim in Singapore, Christine Kim and Joori Roh in Seoul; Edited by Martin Howell)

Trump says to meet with North Korea’s Kim on June 12 in Singapore

FILE PHOTO - A combination photo shows a Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) handout of Kim Jong Un released on May 10, 2016, and Donald Trump posing for a photo in New York City, U.S., May 17, 2016. REUTERS/KCNA handout via Reuters/File Photo & REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on June 12 in Singapore for a first ever summit between the leaders of the two countries.

“The highly anticipated meeting between Kim Jong Un and myself will take place in Singapore on June 12th. We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!” Trump said on Twitter.

The two leaders are expected to discuss North Korea’s nuclear weapons development and testing program, which has deepened long-seated tensions between Washington and Pyongyang.

Trump’s announcement came just hours after three Americans who had been held prisoner in North Korea arrived at a U.S. military base outside Washington, having been released by Kim.

Trump said on their arrival that he believed Kim wanted to bring North Korea “into the real world” and had high hopes for their planned meeting, which would be the first between a serving U.S. president and a North Korean leader.

“I think we have a very good chance of doing something very meaningful,” Trump said. “My proudest achievement will be – this is part of it – when we denuclearize that entire peninsula.”

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Alistair Bell)

Upbeat Trump welcomes U.S. prisoners released by North Korea

U.S.President Donald Trump greets the Americans formerly held hostage in North Korea upon their arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., May 10, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Roberta Rampton and David Brunnstrom

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md./WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump welcomed three Americans who had been held prisoner in North Korea back home on Thursday, thanking its leader Kim Jong Un for their release and sounding upbeat about a planned U.S.-North Korea summit.

The former prisoners, freed after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Pyongyang for a second meeting with Kim in less than six weeks, landed at around 2:40 a.m. (0640 GMT) at Joint Base Andrews near Washington.

Trump and his wife, Melania, boarded the plane for about five minutes before the three men stepped out, shaking hands with the president and waving to media and military personnel.

“Frankly, we didn’t think it was going to happen and it did,” Trump said after thanking Kim for releasing the men.

“We’re starting off on a new footing. This is a wonderful thing that he released the folks early.”

Trump said he believed Kim wanted to bring North Korea “into the real world” and had high hopes for their planned meeting, which would be the first between a serving U.S. president and a North Korean leader.

“I think we have a very good chance of doing something very meaningful,” Trump said. “My proudest achievement will be – this is part of it – when we denuclearize that entire peninsula.”

Trump and Kim engaged in a bellicose exchange of rhetoric last year over North Korea’s development of nuclear missiles capable of reaching the United States. Tensions began to ease, coinciding with the North’s participation in the Winter Olympics in South Korea in February.

There has been no sign that Pompeo’s visit has cleared up the central question of whether North Korea will be willing to bargain away weapons its ruling family has long seen as crucial to its survival.

However, the release of the three men marked a dramatic victory for Trump’s embattled White House at a time when his foreign policy is under withering criticism after Tuesday’s U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.

His administration has also been under fire for ethics violations and a chaotic turnover of personnel, as well as a federal investigation of whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to sway the 2016 presidential election.

The three Americans formerly held hostage in North Korea gesture next to U.S.President Donald Trump, upon their arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., May 10, 2018. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

The three Americans formerly held hostage in North Korea gesture next to U.S.President Donald Trump, upon their arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., May 10, 2018. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

MADE-FOR-TV MOMENT

The arrival of the released prisoners in the dead of night created a made-for-TV moment for Trump, a former reality television host.

“I think you probably broke the all-time-in-history television rating for three o’clock in the morning,” Trump joked to cameras.

Details of the planned Trump-Kim summit have yet to be announced, but a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Singapore had emerged as the likeliest location.

Trump said it would be held in a few weeks and details would be announced within three days.

The three former prisoners were Korean-American missionary Kim Dong-chul, detained in 2015 and sentenced in 2016 to 10 years’ hard labor; Kim Sang-duk, also known as Tony Kim, who taught for a month at the foreign-funded Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) before he was arrested in 2017; and Kim Hak-song, who also taught at PUST and was detained last year.

They appeared to be in good health but were taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in nearby Maryland for further medical evaluation.

“I was treated in many different ways, but overall I had to do much labor and when I became ill I received some treatment,” Kim Dong-chul said via a translator.

The trio thanked Trump and other officials for bringing them home. “We thank God, and all our families and friends who prayed for us and for our return,” they said in a statement released as their plane made a stop in Alaska.

Until now, the only American released by North Korea during Trump’s presidency was Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old university student who returned home in a coma last summer after 17 months in prison and died days later. His death escalated U.S.-North Korea tensions.

Trump said he wanted to pay his “warmest respects” to Warmbier’s parents.

North Korean state media said the three were arrested either for subversion or “hostile acts” against the government. A North Korean official told Pompeo that Kim had granted the three “amnesty,” a senior U.S. official said.

‘NO CLARITY’

The release appeared to signal an effort by Kim to improve the mood for the summit and followed a recent pledge to suspend missile tests and shut a nuclear bomb test site.

Trump has credited his “maximum pressure” campaign for drawing North Korea to the table and vowed to keep sanctions in place until Pyongyang takes concrete steps to denuclearize.

But former spy chief Kim Yong Chul, director of North Korea’s United Front Department, said in a toast to Pompeo over lunch in Pyongyang: “We have perfected our nuclear capability. It is our policy to concentrate all efforts into economic progress … This is not the result of sanctions that have been imposed from outside.”

Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that while the release of the detainees was not an explicit precondition for a Trump-Kim meeting, the North Koreans understood that they had to do it for any progress to be made.

“The North Koreans have still said nothing to indicate that they are willing to give up their nuclear weapons” she said.

“We have no clarity about Kim’s intentions.”

Vice President Mike Pence echoed that caution, even while praising Kim for making moves toward peace.

“What Kim Jong Un has said publicly and in discussions is that he is prepared to negotiate to achieve complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Pence told the CBS “This Morning” program on Thursday. “Those words are important, but we’ll see what they mean.”

A land divided – https://tmsnrt.rs/2KdXMcS

American detainees in North Korea – http://tmsnrt.rs/2pmE3ks

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland in WASHINGTON; Haejin Choi and Christine Kim in SEOUL; Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Nick Macfie and John Stonestreet)

North Korea releases detained Americans ahead of anticipated Trump-Kim summit

FILE PHOTO: A combination photo shows Mike Pompeo (L) in Washington, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (C) in Pyongyang, North Korea and U.S. President Donald Trump (R), in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., respectively from Reuters files. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas (L) & KCNA handout via Reuters & Kevin Lamarque (R)

By Makini Brice and Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that three Americans detained by North Korea have been released and are on their way home with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Trump said he will greet Pompeo and the Americans when they land at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington at 2 a.m. EDT (0600 GMT) Thursday morning.

“I am pleased to inform you that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in the air and on his way back from North Korea with the 3 wonderful gentlemen that everyone is looking so forward to meeting. They seem to be in good health,” Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.

South Korea heralded the move as positive for upcoming talks between Trump and Kim and called on Pyongyang to also release six South Korean detainees.

Pompeo had arrived in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, earlier on Wednesday from Japan and headed to its Koryo Hotel for meetings.

The three U.S. detainees being released are Korean-American missionary Kim Dong-chul; Kim Sang-duk, also known as Tony Kim, who spent a month teaching at the foreign-funded Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) before he was arrested in 2017; and Kim Hak-song, who also taught at PUST.

Until now, the only American released by North Korea during Trump’s presidency has been Otto Warmbier, a 22—year-old university student who returned to the United States in a coma last summer after 17 months of captivity. He died days later.

Warmbier’s death escalated U.S.-North Korea tensions, already running high at the time over Pyongyang’s stepped-up missile tests.

The upcoming U.S.-North Korea summit has sparked a flurry of diplomacy, with Japan, South Korea and China holding a high-level meeting in Tokyo on Wednesday.

However, North Korea reminded the United States on Wednesday there still was tension between them, warning it against “making words and acts that may destroy the hard-won atmosphere of dialogue,” the North’s state media said.

“The U.S. is persistently clinging to the hostile policy toward the DPRK, misleading the public opinion. Such behavior may result in endangering the security of its own country,” it added, referring to the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

(Reporting by Makini Brice and Susan Heavey; Additional reporting by Ju-min Park and Christine Kim in Seoul; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Paul Tait and Bill Trott)

Trump says Pompeo en route to North Korea, cites hopes on U.S. detainees

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo listens to remarks made by President Donald Trump during Pompeo's swearing-in ceremony at the Department of State in Washington, U.S., May 2, 2018. REUTERS/Leah Millis

By Matt Spetalnick and Lesley Wroughton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump revealed on Tuesday that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was on his way to Pyongyang to prepare for Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and expressed hope that three Americans held there would soon be released.

Trump said Pompeo, making his second visit to North Korea in less than six weeks, was expected to arrive “very shortly” and that the two countries had already agreed on a date and location for the unprecedented summit, though he stopped short of providing details.

While Trump said it would be a “great thing” if the three American detainees were freed, Pompeo, speaking to reporters en route to Pyongyang, said he had not received a commitment for their release but hoped North Korea would “do the right thing.”

Their release could signal an effort by Kim to set a more positive tone for the summit following his recent pledge to suspend missile tests and shut Pyongyang’s nuclear bomb test site.

While Kim would be giving up the last of his remaining American prisoners, whom North Korea has often used in the past as bargaining chips with the United States, a release could also be aimed at pressuring Trump to make concessions of his own in his bid to get Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear arsenal, something it has not signaled a willingness to do.

“Plans are being made, relationships are building,” Trump said of the planned summit during remarks at the White House that were otherwise focused on his decision to pull the United States out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

“Hopefully, a deal will happen. And with the help of China, South Korea and Japan, a future of great prosperity and security can be achieved for everyone,” Trump added.

Pompeo made a secret visit to North Korea over the Easter weekend, becoming the first U.S. official known to have met Kim, to lay the groundwork for the planned summit. The meeting occurred before Pompeo’s nomination as secretary of state had been confirmed.

Trump suggested that dropping out of the Iran nuclear accord, which he has frequently denounced as a bad deal for the United States, would send a “critical message” not just to Tehran but also to Pyongyang. He has demanded that North Korea agree to give up its nuclear arsenal.

“The United States no longer makes empty threats. When I make promises, I keep them,” Trump said.

FATE OF THREE DETAINEES IN PLAY

Pompeo’s latest trip raised the prospects that the three Korean-American detainees – Kim Hak-song, Tony Kim and Kim Dong-chul – could be turned over to him.

Asked whether that could happen, Trump told reporters: “We’ll all soon be finding out. We’ll soon be finding out. It would be a great thing if they are.”

“We’ve been asking for the release of these detainees for 17 months,” Pompeo said. “We’ll talk about it again. It’d be a great gesture if they’d agree to do so.”

Pompeo said he was hoping to finalize the agenda for the summit. He met Kim on this last trip but said he did not know exactly who he would meet this time.

Pompeo said he hoped to be able to outline a set of conditions that would create the opportunity for a historic change in the security relationship with North Korea and added that sanctions would not be lifted until U.S. objectives were met.

“We are not going to head down the path we headed down before,” he said. “We will not relieve sanctions until such time as we have achieved our objectives.”

Pompeo’s latest visit followed talks between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in met on April 27 at the heavily fortified demilitarized zone between the countries, the first summit for the two Koreas in over a decade.

The North-South summit produced dramatic images and a declaration of goodwill. But it was short on specific commitments and failed to clear up the question of whether Pyongyang is really willing to give up nuclear missiles that now threaten the United States.

U.S. officials have been pressing Kim to free the three remaining American detainees as a gesture of sincerity before the summit, the first-ever meeting of sitting U.S. and North Korean leaders. Trump and Kim have exchanged insults and threats over the past year but tensions have eased in recent months.

Until now, the only American released by North Korea during Trump’s presidency was Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old university student who returned to the United States in a coma last summer after 17 months of captivity and died days later.

Warmbier’s death escalated U.S.-North Korea tensions, already running high at the time over Pyongyang’s stepped-up missile tests.

The three still being held are Korean-American missionary Kim Dong Chul; Kim Sang-duk, who spent a month teaching at the foreign-funded Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) before he was arrested in 2017, and Kim Hak Song, who also taught at PUST.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick, David Brunnstrom, David Alexander and John Walcott; Editing by Leslie Adler and James Dalgleish)

South Korea says it wants U.S. troops to stay regardless of any treaty with North Korea

FILE PHOTO: U.S. army soldiers take part in a U.S.-South Korea joint river-crossing exercise near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas in Yeoncheon, South Korea, April 8, 2016. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

By Christine Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea said on Wednesday the issue of U.S. troops stationed in the South is unrelated to any future peace treaty with North Korea and that American forces should stay even if such an agreement is signed.

“U.S. troops stationed in South Korea are an issue regarding the alliance between South Korea and the United States. It has nothing to do with signing peace treaties,” said Kim Eui-kyeom, a spokesman for the presidential Blue House, citing President Moon Jae-in.

The Blue House was responding to media questions about a column written by South Korean presidential adviser and academic Moon Chung-in that was published earlier this week.

Moon Chung-in said it would be difficult to justify the presence of U.S. forces in South Korea if a peace treaty was signed after the two Koreas agreed at an historic summit last week to put an end to the Korean conflict.

However, Seoul wants the troops to stay because U.S. forces in South Korea play the role of a mediator in military confrontations between neighboring superpowers like China and Japan, another presidential official told reporters on condition of anonymity earlier on Wednesday.

Presidential adviser Moon Chung-in was asked not to create confusion regarding the president’s stance, Kim said.

The United States currently has around 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, which North Korea has long demanded be removed as one of the conditions for giving up its nuclear and missile programs.

However, there was no mention in last week’s declaration by Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea. Kim and Moon Jae-in pledged to work for the “complete denuclearisation” of the Korean peninsula.

U.S. troops have been stationed in South Korea since the Korean War, which ended in 1953 in an armistice that left the two Koreas technically still at war.

Moon Jae-in and Kim have said they want to put an end to the Korean conflict, promising there will be “no more war” on the Korean peninsula.

(Reporting by Christine Kim; Editing by Paul Tait)