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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump at the first-ever North Korea-US summit on June 12 in Singapore. (AFP)
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If Vox report is true, US would be reneging on its commitment
US President Donald Trump made a pledge to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un promising to sign a declaration ending the Korean War “soon” at the two leaders’ June 12 summit in Singapore, a recent report claims. “President Donald Trump told North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during their Singapore summit in June that he’d sign a declaration to end the Korean War soon after their meeting,” the US news site Vox reported on Aug. 29, citing two sources familiar with the situation. The site said it was unclear whether this had been requested by Kim or suggested by Trump, or whether Trump had made a specific promise to sign a declaration by a certain date. Vox also reported that Pyongyang regards Trump as having made the same promise to Workers’ Party of Korea vice chairman and United Front Department director Kim Yong-chol during the latter’s pre-summit visit to the White House on June 1. North Korea subsequently began making “antagonistic” remarks toward the US after the US administration began demanding dismantlement of nuclear weapons ahead of the signing of an end-of-war declaration despite Trump’s previous promise, the report said. “Having Trump promise a peace declaration and then moving the goalposts and making it conditional would be seen as the US reneging on its commitments,” one of the sources was quoted as saying. “It makes sense why the North Koreans are angry,” the source said. The joint statement issued after the June 12 North Korea-US summit included four commitments: establishing “new US-DPRK relations,” working to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the peninsula, working toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and recovering US POW/MIA remains. When asked in a press conference after the summit if the two leaders had also discussed a peace treaty, Trump replied that the meeting “had things that were not included that we got after the deal was signed.” But when asked at an Aug. 29 briefing whether an end-of-war declaration had been among the commitments agreed upon at the summit, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said, “I’m not familiar with that being part of the overall agreement, but I can tell you that we believe that denuclearization has to take place before we get to other parts.” By Hwang Joon-bum, Washington correspondent Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
