U. S. President Donald Trump on Monday referred to a vague joint statement agreed to at his landmark summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapor<\/b>
\nU. S. President Donald Trump on Monday referred to a vague joint statement agreed to at his landmark summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore last month as a \u201ccontract,\u201d saying he believed Kim would \u201chonor\u201d the agreement while also pointing a finger at China for \u201cexerting negative pressure.\u201d
\u201cI have confidence that Kim Jong Un will honor the contract we signed &, even more importantly, our handshake,\u201d the Trump wrote on Twitter. \u201cWe agreed to the denuclearization of North Korea. China, on the other hand, may be exerting negative pressure on a deal because of our posture on Chinese Trade-Hope Not!\u201d
However, at the Singapore summit, North Korea did not specifically itself agree to denuclearize. Rather, the document that Kim and Trump signed said that Pyongyang was committed to \u201cwork towards the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula\u201d \u2014 language that some observers say gives it room to maneuver for a phased, quid-quo-pro approach with the U. S.
Trump\u2019s characterization of the 1 1\/2 page joint statement as a contract also raised eyebrows, with some experts saying the U. S. president appeared to be trying to shift the blame for the slow progress with the North Koreans on China, Pyongyang\u2019s top ally.
\u201cPOTUS has only himself to blame because Kim never signed anything, let alone a \u2018contract,\u2019 to unilaterally disarm,\u201d Vipin Narang, a North Korea expert and professor of international relations at MIT, wrote Monday on Twitter.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, responding to similar comments from U. S. lawmakers over the weekend, said that blaming Beijing for wanting to trip up U. S.-North Korea talks is \u201ccompletely unreasonable.\u201d
U. S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrapped up two days of talks with North Korean officials in Pyongyang on Saturday, saying that the denuclearization talks, while tough, had produced some results.
North Korea, however, issued a harsh characterization of the negotiations, raising questions about the future talks as U. S. officials seek to persuade the country to relinquish its nuclear weapons program.<\/p>\n