North Korea issued a straightforward statement Thursday saying Pyongyang won’t denuclearize until the U.S. removes its nuclear threat from the region first.
From Daily Caller:
“The proper definition of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is completely eliminating the American nuclear threat to North Korea before eliminating our nuclear capability,” commentary published by state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) declared.
The U.S. and North Korea have been entrenched in negotiations since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump agreed at their June 12 summit to “work toward complete denuclearization,” but in the roughly six months since, few concrete developments have been made.
In Thursday remarks, which are attributed to an individual named Jong Hyon, North Korea is insisting the U.S. remove “all elements of nuclear threats from the areas of both the north and the south of Korea and also from surrounding areas from where the Korean peninsula is targeted.”
The statement’s distinction of not only removing the nuclear threat from North and South Korea but the surrounding regions mirrors the reverse debate in the U.S. on whether the strategy is focused on “denuclearization of North Korea” or “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
