Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un met for talks in Singapore two years ago. Now the signs are no longer on relaxation.
Seoul (dpa) - Two years after the historically assessed first summit meeting with the USA, North Korea has described the calls for the abandonment of its nuclear weapons program as meaningless.
At the same time, the foreign minister of the internationally isolated country, Ri Son Gwon, emphasized in a statement that North Korea's goal was to expand its military forces. He accused the government of US President Donald Trump of using the negotiations solely for political purposes and actually threatening his country militarily.
Whenever Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other US officials opened their mouths, "make nonsensical statements that denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is a safe goal for the United States," Ri was quoted by the state media. His country's only sure strategic goal is "to build more reliable forces to deal with long-term military threats from the United States." That is the message to Washington on the second anniversary of the summit on June 12, 2018 in Singapore.
The first summit between Trump and North Korea's ruler Kim Jong Un was accompanied by high hopes worldwide. In a joint statement, Kim agreed to complete denuclearization. There were no concrete commitments until when Pyongyang would give up the nuclear arsenal. A second meeting between the two in Vietnam in February 2019 was canceled early without result. Since then, the nuclear negotiations have stopped. Most recently, North Korea announced in May this year that it wanted to increase its nuclear power.
Ri blamed Washington for the fact that the situation had deteriorated significantly. An improvement in the relationship cannot be expected simply by maintaining the personal relationship between Kim and Trump.
