Aerial combat drills involving US and South Korean warplanes are riling North Korea, whose state media referred to the exercises as a “provocative military ruckus.” North Korea has responded by postponing some high-level talks with South Korea set for Wednesday in the DMZ.
North Korea’s statement also admonished the US to “undertake careful deliberations about the fate of the planned North Korea-US summit.” North Korea submitted a notice to South Korea on the Wednesday postponement, but the US State Department says they’ve received nothing suggesting a change in summit plans.
There was a lot of speculation that North Korea is backing away from the talks, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with the summit. At least for now, plans don’t appear to be changing, and months of planning for such a historic meeting would be hard to scrap at this point.
The Kim-Trump summit has been confirmed for June 12 in Singapore, and US officials say there is no sign that this sudden increase in tensions is in any way putting that in jeopardy. The talks are expected to focus chiefly on denuclearization.
North Korea had looked the other way during the annual spring military exercises in South Korea, which were smaller than usual, and half the length of normal. It’s not clear exactly why the new aerial drills are much more objectionable, but North Korea suggested they view it as a violation of the understandings they’d reached at a summit with South Korea.
Well that didn’t take long, now did it?
Sadly you’re right we all knew this would happen.
What would happen? That Washington would do everything it can to ruin it?
Washington ? Those jets fly on trumps direct orders, no one elses’.
Wouldn’t it had been nice if we had shocked the entire world and canceled all provocative actions until after the summit? Never mind.
This is likely a clever negotiating move by Kim to test in advance how much flexibility Trump will show in their negotiations. Kim has shown his willingness to end the NK nuclear program but he intends to demand reciprocal guarantees from Trump. If the US forces South Korea to go on with the war games as planned, that will signal that Trump plans to give Kim a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum at their summit.
And AP is now reporting Tuesday night that NK will not abide complete denuclearization for anything the US has to offer. What’s that Trump said about not being played? We shall soon see, but it ain’t looking good tonight. Taking victory laps and dreaming of the NPP was always ill-advised…and if this blows up in Trump’s face the flak is going to hit some republicans in congress as well.
Bolton and Co. not only want all the nukes but also NK’s ballistic missile capability as well…seemingly making NK militarily impotent. That Jong-Un would go for something so extreme always seemed highly dubious.
North Korea should never give up its nukes unless it does so with China. The US cannot be trusted on any fronts period.
It’s really not that confusing. Per the Panmunjom Declaration, April 27, 2018:
2.1: South and North Korea agreed to completely cease all hostile acts against each other in every domain, including land, air and sea, that are the source of military tension and conflict.
It should be expected that following the declaration, behavior on both sides should change to cohere with the agreement. It seems the North has changed. The South is still kowtowing to Washington.
These “drills” also include B52 nuclear bombers. Give me a break.
Idiots can’t seem to keep it in their pants, even when no one cares to see it out.
“The talks are expected to focus chiefly on denuclearization.” Now, I wonder whose suggestion that was, and what the DPRK is offered in exchange.
If there is no peace treaty after the “unfinished” Korean War, then nothing should be offered by NK. Who would believe the USA in any case, even when they “offer” to stop the evil sanctions?
The United States is doing the wrong thing sending bad signals to N Korea just before negotiating a peace agreement getting N Korea to forget about their nuclear program . Just who do you think N Korea believes The U.S. and South Korea are practicing war games for ?? Maybe the US and South Korea are practicing for a attack on Japan ?? . If the U.S. governments leaders are this stupid and nobody has mentioned or stopped this stupidity we should fire the entire crew
The budding US-N. Korea relationship was further torpedoed by Bolton who publicly offered that the denuclearization of N. Korea would have to resemble that of Libya. Kim knows what happened to Qaddafi.
” It’s not clear exactly why the new aerial drills are much more objectionable”. Jason, that is pretty dumb of you. Nuclear bombers (although without bombs) participated in the exercise telling Kim: we can still nuke you if needed.
Saddam, Qaddafi….is Kim next (if he give up his nukes)?
Trump wants this to succeed but was too stupid to understand not to pick Bolton.