President Donald Trump said Saturday that North Korea�s Kim Jong Un wants to meet once again to �start negotiations� after joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises end. He also said Kim apologized for the flurry of recent short-range missile tests that has rattled U.S. allies in the region.
Trump is tweeting more details from the �beautiful� three-page letter he told reporters on Friday that he�d received from Kim. Trump, who is on vacation at his golf club in New Jersey, said Kim spent much of his letter complaining about �the ridiculous and expensive exercises,� which North Korea sees as a threat.
He said Kim offered him �a small apology� for the recent tests and assured him �that this testing would stop when the exercises end.� North Korea on Saturday fired what appeared to be two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea, according to South Korea�s military � the fifth round of launches in less than three weeks.
�I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un in the not too distant future!� Trump wrote.
The two leaders have met three times � in Singapore, Hanoi and at the Korean Demilitarized Zone � but critics say Trump has received few concessions in the standoff over North Korea�s nuclear weapons program in exchange for the meetings.
At their second summit in Vietnam in February, Trump rejected Kim�s demand for widespread sanctions relief in exchange for dismantling the North�s main nuclear complex, a partial disarmament step.
The U.S. and South Korea have scaled down their major military exercises since Trump and Kim�s first summit in June 2018. But the North insists even the downsized drills violate agreements between Kim and Trump and compel it to �develop, test and deploy the powerful physical means essential for national defense.�
When they last met in June of this year, Trump and Kim agreed to resume working-level nuclear talks that have been stalled since February, but there have been no known meetings between the two sides since then.
(AP)
1 Response
Why does the president believe him? He’s a mere 35 year old maniacal, manipulative kid. Why invest in him? “Hey plumpy, when you show sincerity we’ll call you.”