Meet at table or in nuclear showdown, N Korea to US

International Desk: North Korea is threatening to reconsider Kim Jong Un’s participation in a summit with President Trump next month, saying it is up to the United States to decide whether it wants to “meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown.”

The punchy statement comes a day after Trump suggested there was a “substantial chance” that he would postpone or cancel the summit, scheduled to be held in Singapore on June 12, if North Korea did not meet “certain conditions,” without elaborating on what those conditions were.

A close aide to Kim unleashed a torrent of invective against the Trump administration Thursday morning, calling Vice President Pence a “political dummy” for remarks he made to Fox News on Monday.

“As a person involved in the U.S. affairs, I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the U.S. vice-president,” said Choe Son Hui, a vice foreign minister who was previously the regime’s top official in charge of relations with the United States. The daughter of a former premier, she is also thought to have direct access to Kim.

On Monday, just days after a North Korean broadside at national security adviser John Bolton for his mention of a “Libya model” for the denuclearization of the North, Pence doubled down on the analogy.

“As the President made clear, this will only end like the Libyan model ended if Kim Jong Un doesn’t make a deal,” Pence told Fox News. Asked whether that could be interpreted as a threat, Pence said: “Well, I think it’s more of a fact.”

As preparations for the summit continue, Bolton and Pence have touted the “Libya model,” whereby Moammar Gaddafi gave up his nuclear weapons program in 2003 in return for sanctions relief.

The North Korean regime, however, remembers what happened eight years later: Gaddafi was overthrown and brutally killed by his opponents.

Trump and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, have repeatedly said they would guarantee Kim’s safety and he would stay in charge of a country that could benefit from an influx of foreign investment if it were prepared to give up its nuclear weapons.

Source: Agencies

risingbd/Dhaka/May 24, 2018/A K Azad