Calls for Trump’s Nobel Peace prize might have been a bit hasty.
President Donald Trump is fond of crediting his “maximum pressure” campaign on North Korea for convincing Pyongyang to take part in talks on denuclearization.
An official in North Korea, however, said Trump administration claims that sanctions and political pressure from Washington were what led to Pyongyang’s denuclearization pledge are “misleading” — and could even scuttle the planned negotiations.
Pyongyang’s KCNA news agency cited a foreign ministry spokesman who warned Sunday that the US claims actually undermine peace talks on the Korean Peninsula.
“This act cannot be construed otherwise than a dangerous attempt to ruin the hardly-won atmosphere of dialogue and bring the situation back to square one,” the spokesman said, in comments that come mere weeks ahead of an unprecedented bilateral summit between the US president and his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong Un.
Last month, Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed at a summit meeting to work toward agreement to officially end the decades-long Korean War.