Posts
While
the Koreas work things out themselves and decide to appear in one
team for the opening of the Olympics Trump makes war.
Two
competing agendas here.
Trump Readies for Pre-Emptive Attack N.KOREA
North & South Korea to form 1st joint Olympic team, march at opening together under unified flag
RT,
17
January, 2018
North
and South Korea have agreed to form a unified women's hockey team for
the upcoming Winter Olympics, and will march under a unified flag at
the opening ceremony, according to a joint statement.
North
Korea is due to send a delegation which will consist of around 550
members including 230 cheerleaders, 140 artists and 30 Taekwondo
fighters, to South Korea on January 25.
#Korea talks: ‘When US is sidelined, local players find peaceful solutions’ on.rt.com/8wm1
The
agreement on Wednesday means this will be the first time a joint
Korean sports team has been put together in 27 years, since the 1991
World Table Tennis Championships and FIFA World Youth Championship,
and the first ever in Olympics history.
“Athletes
from both Koreas marched together at international sports events
about nine times so far,” South Korean Minister of Culture, Sports
and Tourism Do Jong-whan said on Monday, as quoted by the Chosun
Ilbo. “Peace on the Korean Peninsula through sports is a value that
the Olympics are pursuing.”
Despite
the agreement between Pyongyang and Seoul, the final decision about
the team rests with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which
will hold a meeting on in Switzerland on Saturday to discuss the
possible joint Korean team and other matters relating to North Korea.
In
his New Year’s address, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he was
considering sending an athletic delegation to the Pyeongchang
Olympics, while a few days later, a border hotline operating across
the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) resumed operation for the first time in
two years.
As
a result of the easing of tensions, the first intra-Korean peace
talks in two years kicked off between officials in the border village
of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone earlier in January. The two
Koreas remain technically at war despite the de-facto end of
hostilities in 1953.
Trump
says Russia helping North Korea skirt sanctions; Pyongyang getting
close on missile
17
January, 2018
U.S.
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday Russia is helping North
Korea evade international sanctions and that Pyongyang is getting
“closer every day” to being able to deliver a long-range missile
to the United States.
“Russia
is not helping us at all with North Korea,” Trump said during an
Oval Office interview with Reuters. “What China is helping us with,
Russia is denting. In other words, Russia is making up for some of
what China is doing.”
China
and Russia both signed onto the latest rounds of United Nations
Security Council sanctions against North Korea imposed last year.
There was no immediate comment from the Russian embassy in Washington
on Trump’s remarks.
During
a 53-minute interview with a fresh Diet Coke near at hand on his
desk, Trump also said he was considering a big “fine” as part of
an investigation into China’s alleged theft of intellectual
property; that he has lost all trust in the chief Democratic Party
negotiator on immigration in the Senate; and declined to clear up
conflicting reports about his use of the phrase “shithole
countries” in a White House meeting, which caused an international
outcry.
With
North Korea persisting as the major global challenge facing Trump
this year, the president cast doubt on whether talks with North
Korean leader Kim Jong Un would be useful. In the past he has not
ruled out direct talks with Kim.
“I’d
sit down, but I‘m not sure that sitting down will solve the
problem,” he said, noting that past negotiations with the North
Koreans by his predecessors had failed to rein in North Korea’s
nuclear and missile programs.
He
blamed his three immediate predecessors, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush
and Barack Obama, for failing to resolve the crisis and, a day after
his doctor gave him a perfect score on a cognitive test, suggested he
had the mental acuity to solve it.
“I
guess they all realized they were going to have to leave it to a
president that scored the highest on tests,” he said.
He
declined to comment when asked whether he had engaged in any
communications at all with Kim, with whom he has exchanged public
insults and threats, heightening tensions in the region.
Trump
said he hoped the standoff with Pyongyang could be resolved “in a
peaceful way, but it’s very possible that it can’t.”
Trump
praised China for its efforts to restrict oil and coal supplies to
North Korea but said Beijing could do much more to help constrain
Pyongyang.
The
White House last week welcomed news that imports to China from North
Korea, which counts on Beijing as its main economic partner, plunged
in December to their lowest in dollar terms since at least the start
of 2014.
‘Very possible’ that N. Korea crisis can’t be resolved peacefully – Trump
RT,
17
January, 2018
It's
“very possible” that the standoff with North Korea might not be
resolved peacefully, Donald Trump said in an exclusive interview with
Reuters, adding, that he is not sure if the talks will lead to
“anything meaningful.”
“I’d
sit down, but I‘m not sure that sitting down will solve the
problem,” Trump said.
He
added that he is basically “not sure that talks will lead to
anything meaningful” since they have been going on for 25 years
now.
The
remarks come after Trump’s statement earlier in January, in which
he said he is “absolutely” willing to talk on the phone to North
Korean leader Kim Jong-un if certain conditions are met.
Tensions
with Pyongyang have risen since Trump came to power in January last
year, with many threats, incendiary rhetoric and provocative military
maneuvers exhanged by both sides.
During
the interview, the US leader also had some harsh words for Russia
with regards to the situation on the Korean peninsula. Trump accused
Moscow of being soft on Pyongyang and not doing enough to implement
international sanctions.
While
supporting the UN Security Council sanctions on Pyongyang, Moscow has
repeatedly insisted that the US itself should take a more moderate
approach towards North Korea and follow the diplomatic route.
Trump
and Kim have repeatedly threatened one another with an armed strike,
with the US commander in chief once tweeting that his nuclear button
was “much bigger & more powerful one than his [Kim's], and my
Button works!”
Speaking
from the Oval Office, Trump told Reuters that he still wasn’t
ruling out military action. “We’re playing a very, very hard game
of poker and you don’t want to reveal your hand,” he said.
Meanwhile,
Russia's foreign ministry criticized the joint US-Canadian summit
trying to resolve the the N.Korean question. Moscow said the nations
present failed to provide any alternatives to the joint
Russian-Chinese “double-freeze” strategy, in which Pyongyang and
the US respectively cease their missile program and military
maneuvers. Neither Russia nor China were invited to the summit, where
Washington again rejected the double-freeze solution.
US
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard said Tuesday that it's Washington’s
aggressive foreign policy – agitating for regime change around the
world – that's lead to the tense situation with North Korea.
“Regime
change war policy is the reason why North Korea sees nuclear weapons
as their only deterrent from a US-led attack,” she tweeted. “Kim
Jong-un sees what the US has done to Gaddafi in Libya, Saddam Hussein
in Iraq, and the effort underway to decertify the nuclear deal with
Iran,” the Democratic representative from Hawaii said.
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