Speaking to reporters Friday on a flight to Singapore for talks, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed his claim of North Korea making “fissile material” and subsequent media reports claiming activity at a North Korean missile site.
Pompeo said if the reports were true, North Korea was “behaving in a manner inconsistent with” commitments made at the Trump-Kim summit, as well as in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. There is no evidence that either of the allegations is actually true, however.
The missile site reports are based on third party analysis of satellite photos, and was contradicted by other photos showing North Korea had dismantled parts of the testing site. Pompeo offered no details on his fissile material claim.
There are, however, reasons to believe North Korea could be producing fissile material without having a nuclear weapons program. North Korea’s civilian nuclear reactors also produce plutonium as a by-product, and pledging to freeze their weapons program does not necessarily mean North Korea was committed to dismantling its civilian nuclear infrastructure.
It is noteworthy that Pompeo qualified his comments as being contingent on the reports of North Korea’s behavior being true. This is particularly interesting since Pompeo was the source of some of those accusations.
Those who oppose a deal with North Korea pretend there is already a deal, and demand the North concede everything they want now. It is a way to prevent an actual deal, because they want regime change not a deal.
And a lot of the people that are for the deal also want the North to concede everything they want now and deep down also want regime change.
This is heartening. Pompeo is no longer reflexively siding with “intelligence”.
There was no deal. It was a political stunt. The ryme or reason behind it beyond that may mean nothing in the end since the world is endangered by a malignant narcicist with a handful of Cluster B personality disorders. No offense to those poor souls who suffer from these mental illnesses but look up the diagnostic criteria yourself yoursel, measure trumps statements and actions beside them and try to tell me any long term game plan existant or not cant be Trumped by an impulsive US presidant. Just hope no one forgets to bring him his coke
Was there a deal from the SKorean side? Or just political stunts from them as well? If so, I guess they don’t mind getting bombed to the stone age by their pals in Washington.
Tell us, Pompous, about the commitment the USA has made and what has been done so far by your side. After all, you are the country that completely
destroyed North Korea, refused to make a Peace Treaty and has reneged on several attempts at agreement in the last 65 years. It is worth trying a bit harder.
Can we read the “text” of the deal and judge for ourselves? Did anybody write anything down?
Read the Panmunjom Declaration. Trump’s agreement with NKorea also refers to this document.
Oh the text is easy to find. So NK is abiding by it, they are returning boxes of dead soldier. The other issue more nebulous “work towards denuclearization” well what does that mean exactly.