Giving up nuclear weapons not negotiable by Kim, Trump says

Donald Trump says he will still insist on the denuclearisation of North Korea.

Donald Trump in the White House this week. Picture: AP

Donald Trump says he will still insist on the denuclearisation of North Korea despite threats by the Kim regime to cancel a leader’s summit over US demands that it surrender its atomic weapons.

The June 12 summit in Singapore remained under a cloud yesterday after the US President admitted Pyongyang had not contacted the White House about its concerns over the nuclear issue.

“No decision. We haven’t been notified at all. We’ll have to see,” Mr Trump said.

Asked whether he would still demand denuclearisation from North Korean lead Kim Jong-un, Mr Trump responded: “Yeah.’’

North Korea threatened to cancel the summit if the US insisted on the complete and irreversible destruction of its nuclear program.

If the Trump adminis­tration “corners us and unilaterally demands we give up nuclear weapons, we will no longer have an interest in talks and will have to reconsider whether we accept the upcoming DPRK-US summit”, First Vice-Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan said on Wednesday.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said yesterday the President remained “hopeful” that the summit would still take place but was prepared that it may not.

“The President is ready if the meeting takes place,” she said. “And if it doesn’t, we will continue the maximum pressure campaign that has been ongoing.”

Some in the administration believe the threat is part of a tactical move by North Korea to secure a better outcome at the talks rather than a sign that the summit will be cancelled.

Others caution that the rogue regime is so unpredictable it may abruptly cancel the meeting.

“We are trying to be both optimistic and realistic at the same time,” national security adviser John Bolton said yesterday.

Mr Bolton, who had called for the destruction of the regime before taking his job in March, was singled out by Pyongyang, which said it could not “hide our feeling of repugnance towards him”.

The Trump administration has not indicated what it might offer in exchange for an agreement from Kim to get rid of his nuclear arsenal, although such a deal would almost certainly see UN and other economic sanctions lifted.

However, the North Korean leader is also expected to seek substantial reductions in US military presence on the Korean peninsula and a security guarantee from Washington as a minimum for any nuclear deal.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has foreshadowed a flood of private US investment into the poverty-stricken nation if economic sanctions were lifted.

The North Korean threat came as a surprise after recent conciliatory behaviour from Kim. These included the release of three US hostages, the freezing of nuclear and missile tests and the planned closure of one of his country’s ­nuclear test sites.

This week, North Korea also cancelled high-level talks with South Korea in protest against US-South Korean military exercises, which Pyongyang claimed were a rehearsal for invasion.